springtime

 

I can’t find where to start. Two weeks of whirlwind emotions have exhausted my mind and tied my tongue. Hannahstasia and I—hysterical laughter. My family and I—hard work, punctuated by tears. Sam and I—all of the above, plus the insane euphoria of finally being together, being married, after two long years apart.

Many lasts and ends. Even more beginnings and firsts. Crocuses are pushing up through the winter earth and my new backyard is painted a rich green. Newness, freshness, sunshine, growth. It’s springtime—not just for this year, but for my life.

february snow

 

One: bff (and bridesmaid!) visiting me from Pennsylvania.
Two: long drives in scary winter weather, mercifully protected by God.
Three: dates with my beloved last weekend (one of them a fancy dress-up banquet in a soft nighttime snowfall).
Seven: East Coast friends and family visiting next weekend.
Ten: days till I marry my best friend.
Eighteen: inches of snow.

Countless: graces and mercies of God.

winter

 

It wasn’t supposed to snow.

It was supposed to be like November and December—winter months pretending to be spring, with forty-degree-sunshine days and muddy fields and the smell of soggy grass. It was a little odd to have a summery Christmas, but I was too busy to complain, and I just assumed the warm trend would continue till May.

But not so. February wants to be the last week of December. There’s a blizzard in the gorge, twenty-car collisions on the I-5 corridor. Schools are closing in the middle of the day, sending kids back home to white-painted houses hunkered against single-digit cold. Winter slept late, but it’s waking now.