Spring Street (Dar Williams)

I've written before that we don't really have distinct seasons here in South Florida - it feels like almost year-round summer, with flowers blooming constantly, no falling of leaves and no winter to speak of. For the attuned, the difference is subtle yet distinct - we've been experiencing a "cold snap" (i.e., 60+ degree nights, 70+ degree days) which has been refreshing, invigorating and a wake-up call for me personally...

I went through a patch these last few months whereupon I lost my concentration - I got so bogged down in the minutae of daily life (everyone else's) that I forgot to pay attention to my own. I was eating crap (and lots of it!), being extremely sedentary and in a stuck place productivity- and positivity-wise - through the motivation of various blogposts (here and here) and the support of a particular friend on a similar journey (hi, MH!), I am back on track in all its many connotations...

This past Monday found me focusing on... my 3-mile trek around the neighborhood (god, I'd missed my walking!), followed by a stretching routine; a healthy eating plan of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, with my only sweet/indulgence being a Skinny Cow (love the taste, hate the name!) ice cream sandwich each evening; vitamins twice a day (memory's the second thing to go, you know!); an as-close-to-midnight-as-I-can-make-it bedtime; and beaucoup glasses of water - I've succeeded four out of the last four days, and am well on the way to completing today's assignment...

Still haven't managed to make/find time for 10 minutes of meditation a day - always room for improvement. I've vowed to resume blogging on a semi-regular basis as well - there's a place in the world for the therapeutic spew-and-send (major understatement... :-)

Many plusses this week: Eric is home from college for the Easter weekend and we'll have a family dinner Sunday afternoon... my Labyrinth Cafe concert is this Saturday night, and it got a nice treatment in today's Miami Herald... we get to hard-boil and dye eggs tomorrow... and the HBO drama In Treatment is back with Season 2 - "I don't have to go to Spring Street... 'cause it's spring everywhere"!

P.S. SMM here, here, here, here and here...

SONG: Spring Street by Dar Williams

BOOK: Spring: A Spiritual Biography of the Season by Gary D. Schmidt, Susan M. Felch (editors), Mary Azarian (illustrator)

POEM: Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem' by Barbara Crooker

Today, the sky's the soft blue of a work shirt washed

a thousand times. The journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step. On the interstate listening

to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist

say, "The universe is not only stranger than we

think, it's stranger than we can think." I think

I've driven into spring, as the woods revive
with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy

scarves flung over bark's bare limbs. Barely doing

sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called Glory Bound,

and aren't we just? Just yesterday,

I read Li Po: "There is no end of things

in the heart," but it seems like things

are always ending—vacation or childhood,

relationships, stores going out of business,

like the one that sold jeans that really fit—

And where do we fit in? How can we get up

in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do,

put one foot after the other, open the window,

make coffee, watch the steam curl up

and disappear. At night, the scent of phlox curls

in the open window, while the sky turns red violet,

lavender, thistle, a box of spilled crayons.

The moon spills its milk on the black tabletop

for the thousandth time.

QUOTE(S): "Every spring is the only spring - a perpetual astonishment." ~ Ellis Peters

"The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring." ~ Bern Williams