This morning. . .Suddenly it's Spring

Nearly 6:00am. Awake. Up and about feeling rested. I wander the house. Searching.

Persistent clattery swirls of spotty rain on the roof. Could be the storm's mostly over. Could be the pitter-patter's maybe just spatters blown from water-laden leaves suspended high above, in dense trees surrounding the house.

I'm strangely restless, moving from window-to-window.

I'm shivering. I pull a sweatshirt off its hook in the hall closet, shake into it, switch on the living room fireplace and step out onto the glassed-in porch. As if on cue, the electric heater kicks on and warms my bare legs. A fat sparrow, roosts in puffed-up feathers beside a tiny finch on the trough of the bird-feeder. Their lumpy presence, my-side of the feeder, tells me the general direction of the gusty wind. Their feathers say it's cold out there.

For several moments the rain comes in angry bursts. Heavy raindrops lash the surface of the pond. Bushes rock, and tree limbs whip about in sharp wind-gusts. A bleak, damp day. An inside day. Made for light housework and quiet reading. Maybe a mid-afternoon nap, snug on the couch, beneath a light throw across from the Great-Room fireplace. But not now. I'm restless.

Should I work out? Maybe some yoga? Not certain. I know my mind. I'm tryna find Nancy.

I wander room-to-room in this beautiful house that says her name. Soon I'll find her, sense her presence -- and then this chilly house'll be home.

Rain-spattered windows frame the gusty dampness. Close around the house, scores of daffodil-clumps are mostly fading, their dripping dead flags waving lightly, then dancing in wind-gusts. Among them, startling purple tulips burst free on long sweeping wands. Across the drive, soft-rising bleeding heart blossoms wave gently among foot-high, round globes of spiky green day-lilies. Classic and hybrid hasta-splits rise a foot high everywhere, their tight spikes now unrolling into leaves the size of my hand.

Among the trees, nearly full-grown May-apples sprawl in tight, deep carpets, their round-scalloped, over-lapping leaves already large as luncheon plates. Throughout the woods, German Ivy crowds the bases of many trees, grips the bark, begins its persistent climb. Some sunny day, soon, I'll be pulling it down and snipping it back.

But this past three springs I've put off garden chores until early June. They're not nearly as much fun without Nancy. Still, soon enough I'll work the gardens and crowd the open spaces with large jugs and vases of bright annuals. Soon enough I'll feel her hands crowding mine in tight-rubberized work gloves. Soon enough we'll make the gardens beautiful once more.

Last Wednesday's myriad bush and tree buds have now burst and unwoven into leaves the size of teaspoons -- small, but already so many this morning I can hardly see through them to the pond. The woods is fairly open. Still, though I've long-since cleared the brush and opened paths, I've left many tall, spindly young maples and sprawling green-to-scarlet barberry. This clutter of low-lying, leaf-laden branches largely obscures my view of the deep woods outback, of the homes out front.

Moving quietly from window-to-window, arms-crossed, my right shoulder pressed softly against each grooved window frame, my nose pressed close to the glass, I gaze speculatively out into this damp spring scene. I'm feeling comfortably closed in, alone, yet safe and secure in this home we made. I softly hum and sing that old Methodist hymn from my childhood:

Leanin', leanin', safe and secure
from all alarms.
Leanin', leanin'. . .
Leanin' on the everlasting arms.

By the time I've completed six verses, I've found her. I turn away from the window. No longer restless, I lie down on the couch. . .

safe and secure in
Nancy's everlasting arms.