Dear Reader:

So, I must mention that a few hours after Saturday's post, I received an e-mail from a friend that said the most lovely and generous thing I could have imagined.   Sometimes, dear reader, you receive a gesture that just stops you in your tracks.   So, to my friend, if you are reading this, I must thank you again.   Even though you feel as though you are all kinds of awkward in social situations, you clearly do know how to say the right thing when it matters.   I will not forget your kindness.

OK.  Moment over.  Well, today was a work, work, work day, but I managed to take some moments and organize my desk at the office and, I have to tell you, the effect of decluttering is equivalent to an hour long massage for me.   I don't know why, but when the items around me are in neat little piles I just feel like I am capable of anything.  I just love the idea of tidiness:  a smooth apron, alphabetized assignments to be graded, freshly sharpened pencils, labeled bins of various household odds and ends, toys lined up in a row.   I even laid out each piano student's repertoire in a row of piles on one of my office pianos.  I am fairly sure that I'll be able to practice tomorrow morning with much more freedom and ease because of this process of "tidying up."  Although, OK, there's a small chance that it also might be a procrastination thing for me.  My philosopher friend assures me that there is now a compelling argument for procrastination out in scholarly book form.   Excellent.  

Total calories consumed today:   1450
Total calories burned today:  200 (35 minutes on the treadmill)
Total lbs. lost:  No weigh in today.

Breakfast:

Lunch at the caf with colleagues:  Half of a steak sandwich, 8 steak cut fries, corn, frozen yogurt with strawberries

Dinner - two servings of taco salad:

Snacks:  strawberries, sugar snap peas, string cheese

I am reading "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" to my kids each night, and I came across this lovely passage regarding the return of spring to Narnia as the White Witch loses her power:

"A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travelers.  The trees began to come fully alive.  The larches and birches were covered with green, the laburnums with gold.  Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate, transparent leaves.  As the travelers walked under them the light also became green.  A bee buzzed across their path."

Forgive me, dear reader, for posting lyrical passages in anticipation of spring.  At this time of year, it is the only thing which will get me through these last weeks of winter.   And, here's another poem that I thought of today.   Although it is a somewhat sad poem about the loss of the poet's mother, I find a touching tribute from a son to his mother and hope that, some day, my children will feel similarly about me - it is a tall order...  

Mother

by Ted Kooser

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.
**************


Thanks for reading!