Working Out the Moral
So, a lot's happening. Not with me personally, so much, but with (waves arms) everything.
Here's what it looks like around here these days.
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| the sun, high in the sky, filters through bare-branched birches and various types of conifers |
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| a birchbark-on-trunk closeup, a shot I take often |
Spring has definitely, you know, and it's as glorious as ever. Now I wonder if I was somehow "too hard on" winter. If I complained too much, but beyond that -- if I went from impatient for spring, disappointed ("I'm not mad, just disappointed") with each ensuing cold snap and snowstorm, to actual anger. Of the shaking-fists-at-the-sky ilk. Futile rage.
Possibly.
Here's what my toast looked like this morning. (Stay with me for a sec.)
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| slice of multigrain bread with a large baked-in hole |
I adore this type of bread. I buy multiple loaves when it's in the store (it freezes well, an excellent feature when you eat as much as toast as we do in this house), and I was really looking forward to my first piece of toast from this loaf.
And guess what!?! It was amazing. Hole and all. I don't love the bread less because this slice has a hole in it.
I don't love this place less when there's a difficult season (outside or inside). I just love it, sans disappointment. (Not sans complaining, mind.)
If the weather doesn't suit me this year, well, next year. Perhaps I won't be able to say "next year" someday, perhaps I'll be all-too-aware that my springs are numbered.
I'm already more aware than I once was (pandemic? birthdays ending in zero? fatigue? sure, to all of those). Aware of all the clichés: time passes, everything changes, we all die, make the most of blah blah, the only thing we have to fear yadda yadda. Et cetera.
Clichés because true, though unoriginal. As is this feeling of mine, that I love my toast even when it is imperfect, in part because it is imperfect--it has a history. Same with this place.
I was tempted today to just post the three photos. In the words of Mrs. Miniver (from the book Mrs. Miniver, not the movie), when she's on vacation visiting in-laws in Scotland and drowsy while watching chaffinches, "It was too hot to work out the moral."
I didn't think there was a "moral," exactly, to these photos, and I still don't. It also wasn't "too hot" (in any metaphorical sense) today for me to consider it. I just wanted to move on with my day, indoors and out.
I'm glad to have recognized, yet again, that it is possible (necessary) to love the imperfect.
These really are the "good old days." They really are.