Hope and Respite

Yesterday morning it snowed.

Today, the sun is shining and the sky is so blue I find myself confused, wondering if I have somehow wandered into an old Technicolor movie.

Little Sprout pestered me and fought me, screaming and demanding, until I took her outside. I don't know why it was so hard for her to convince me. All I can say is that I have been sinking deeper and deeper into the mudhole of depression with this spring that doesn't want to come. Oh, there are other reasons for me to feel that the world is falling down around me, there always are. But I am blaming Spring and her teasing nature, the way she comes for a day, flirting and tempting me with her warmth and her scent only to leave me in the cold embrace of Old Man Winter the next day.

So I went outside with Little Sprout, full of resentment that she would make such demands of me. The headache I have had for the last week had kept me up much of the night, fighting down nausea. The other general body aches that always accompany a full on depression made me move stiffly, like an old woman bent over her cane and unsure of every step. I was cold, I was miserable, I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my chair and pretend I didn't exist.

I settled myself in the grass, and it was as if gravity took a stronger hold on me than ever before. I lay there, body pressed to the ground, sun beating down on me, and just.... went away. There was nothing more complicated in the world than the Sun, the Earth, and Me. Every ugly thought in my mind melted under the sun's warmth. Every ache in my body dissolved right down into the earth. I could almost feel my body flattening out, like pancake batter on a hot griddle, seeking to get as  much of me touching the earth (and, on the flip side, as much of me exposed to the sun) as possible. My cheek was pressed to the grass, and it didn't bother me to know that I would probably wear it's wrinkly imprint for a long time after lifting my face. I could smell the ground, the sweetness of the grass. I could hear chickadees and jays in the trees, chattering and bickering in the way of their own natures.

It was good. It was amazing. For those few moments, I rested.

And then reality returned. Little Sprout stuck her finger inside an old pop can, getting the finger stuck and cutting her knuckle. I saved her from the clutches of the nasty old pop can, cleaned and bandaged her finger, and soothed her panic with hugs, kisses, and the standard Mom lecture of "well, you learned not to do that again, didn't you?"

*sigh* Nothing lasts forever, right?

~...and that's all I have to say about that...~