beginnings

beginnings
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

I love beginnings.

I don't feel that I've seen very many of them; I always seem to be trying to wrap up something that went before. The past year has been a real wake-up call to letting go.

But on a single spring evening's bike ride, I found beginnings everywhere. I saw the first ospreys back from winter, calling in whistled chirps from their nesting platform. The orange-white-black flash of a rufous-sided towhee on a pine branch surprised me, and the shrill warning call of killdeer greeted me at the Dover wetland. Each first bird sighting is its own little celebration. The air will never feel as fresh through the year as it does now, damp and new. And on the way back, I caught the very first frog-croak of evening.

Spring is easy to love. It brings back reminders of all the little joys and possibilities we'd forgotten about in winter.