When you’re in the depths of winter, you think about Spring and you think you know what it means. (Substitute any seasons here. I think longing clouds your vision.) I know I don’t remember the allergens (achoo!), but I don’t think you remember Spring’s long and sustained beauty. There are too many wonderful flowers blooming, too many trees bursting with color; the scent of all the unfolding dances on the breeze — oh right the breezes and the gales.

There’s a rail trail in our area and a girlfriend and I strolled down it at dusk, talking about life and its challenges. It’s hard to decide whether the setting was simply antithetical to our conversation or a balm! Life is very hard and life is very beautiful. There we were, all in one splash. The trail cuts through people’s back yards, farmers fields and wooded copses. It does that all in rapid succession, lest you think i walked for miles and miles and miles. Violets, bulbs, trees, new plantings, birds and barking dogs soothed conversations of loss and challenging presents and subsequent futures.

As we were walking for clarity and health, the earth was offering Beauty. Maybe the conundrum of Spring that I was poking at earlier is that it is so ephemeral and short-lived, in such an exuberant and sustained way. That’s good to remember when life is confusing. Peace comes in many guises, doesn’t it, and it keeps opening new ways to walk. Filled up with beauty and gratitude and searching for Peace in the midst of the chaos. We’ll make it the weather and the rest of us… Our lives depend on it.