Thaw

"...as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before." - Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

I'm afraid it is too soon to yell from the mountain tops, but I did feel a spirit of Spring in the air this morning when I started my car and it didn't sound like a garbage compactor with something lodged inside it.  

I opened my door to the smell of water - wet puddles growing along the road.  I saw pavement on our street that has otherwise been a luge runway.  I could run out and start my car without a jacket.  My hands didn't break into a million pieces without gloves on.  Water is dripping off the long icicles above our doorway.  Slush has taken the place of icy snowy embankments.  

Hope is a practice.  It's moments like this where I remember the importance of hope in all things.  It's not an emotion to cover all sins, but one to carry you through to new light even if the tunnel seems particularly long and dark.  

My friend gave me a book of poems by Mary Oliver, which I've been reading through lately and pasting on this blog.  Funny enough, one of my favorite podcasts On Being has recently recorded her reading her poems herself.   

They are here and they are lovely. 

May we all hope for the thaw of so many things.