Much like the rest of the United States winter has been reluctant to leave this year. It has been cold, rainy, gray and windy for what seems like a long time. One day of sunshine followed by six days of gray. Saturday it was 85 degrees with warm breezes and Sunday it was 40 rainy and windy. The trees are budding some are starting to flower. This time last year we were purchasing seedlings to plant in the ground. This year I am enjoying flowers in bases around the house as well as flowers in the greenhouse at work. 

It has been a hard winter for me and my peace of mind but on the other hand it has forced me to focus my thinking and deciding what I want to do over the next year as well as reevaluating what is important to myself and Michael. It is amazing what bleak weather can do for ones focus and thinking. I try very hard to be happy every day and not just the sunshine ones. I found one way to keep my balance was to remember each day what I am grateful and thankful for as well as what makes me happy. Artwork, books, the quest for knowledge and understanding as well as spending time with nature and those important to me came to the forefront. 

I do not wish my life to be filled with stress, work and the pursuit of more money to be my driver. What I wish for is time to be myself and be with Michael, I hope to find a new job in the fall and wish to find fulfillment in living with less and wishing for less. I love spending time watching nature outside our home everyday. Yesterday I opened the front door to let the dog out and found nine deer watching me with two who were only fifteen feet from me. The deer were not startled by me or Meadow and quietly moved off into the woods. Today I saw turkeys-three toms and four hens. I have finally found four trees the pileated woodpeckers have been working on. I was excited to see a pine warbler for the first time today. Mike and I love star watching. 

I find myself thinking of my father as his birthday was Saturday. He would have been eighty four. He died twenty four years ago. He worked all of his life and was so looking forward to retirement. But it was not to be. My dad lived each day to the fullest but I know he wished his travel did not take him so far or so long away from his family. I remember one of his friends telling my mom that he put in his retirement papers at the Baltimore City Police Department the day after finding out my dad died. He was shook up by my dad’s death. I do not wish to reach the end of my life only having worked at jobs I don’t like and don’t feel like I have accomplished anything at the end of every day. I wish for more. Perhaps this is the start of a midlife crisis at work but I know work is not what I wish to remember when I am at the end of my life. I wish to be remembered as a good friend, a loving wife and one who helped out anyone who asked as well as a voracious reader and lover of art and animals. 

Funny what a long winter can do to ones thinking. As I recall Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein during a long dark winter so perhaps my thinking is not so far off. I love that being human we can reinvent ourselves everyday if not every hour or never it is up to us. 

I hope spring arrives soon but in the meantime I will enjoy the flowers however they show themselves to me.