I know there are plenty of folks who love putzing around on their own floorboards, padding between one room to the next, chatting it up with Fluffy or Fuzzy, and although I enjoy those evenings when my sweetie and I arrive home with enough energy to listen to each other and make our time together meaningful, I love to wander too. Waking in a new sphere. Listening to bird chatter that is unfamiliar. Discover the new terrain with all that exotic flora and fauna. Perhaps this is why I am a fan of living in a region with drastic seasonal changes. Here, today, Spring is forcing its way into being, through heavy skies and cool temps, finally making green. Blooming into color. Reminding us to see the changes. To look around in the everyday.

Early Spring in Vermont is a bit of a tease. A glorious sunshine one day breaks to a harsh wind the next. The temperature as erratic as can be while our patience wears thin. But if you are watchful, there is plenty to notice, as the snow melt turns every small stream into something larger, sweeping down the ravines and along side our roadways, with the rush that always enhances a cleanse. Color is popping along the forest edge, and trees are gently budding. Slow change is sometimes hard to notice as we speed along lost in what we long for, but stop to see this, now.

In my impatience I find ways to adorn my world with faster color to move away from the gray. My mother of course was the original when it came to fabulous wreaths. She had a new one every few months which expressed exactly the tenet of the season. I was desperate for my tulips so…

but these buds hold out for 65 degrees and sunshine and nothing less. Standards for survival. 

Travel when you can. Where ever you can. See all the tall spots. The corners and what is waiting just around them. Find the little secrets too. This is a planet of extraordinary people who will challenge your notion of wealth and politics and religion and family and worth, and all those notions need to be challenged periodically so you can be sure in what you truly believe. But in the meantime, take a good look at your hometown too. There must be a new bridge to cross, or at least one you haven’t been able too while huddled indoors avoiding the gray, so take a stroll.