Finally

Ah, it's been awhile. Wish I had an excuse, but I don't - not really, nothing other than the standard: life got in the way. I've been terribly tired lately. So terribly tired. Falling asleep on the bus ride home, dragging myself through the motions of a workout, then eating and crashing on the couch each night. Finally, sometime last week I had an idea: maybe I was low on iron. I petitioned Cass (who was in the middle of making a salad dinner) to head out and get me a steak from the local grocery store; he did - and I ate the entire thing (after a cherry smoothie), then curled up and went to sleep.

The next morning, I finally felt like myself again for the first time in weeks. What a relief. I'm trying to make sure I'm eating a bit more protein (plant and animal) now, just so I don't dip back into exhaustion.

I also gave myself a three-day weekend this weekend, taking some vacation time today to get a break from the workplace. That freed up my weekend (from the usual routine of housework - recovering from the past week and prepping for the next work week) so we could go on some lovely long walks in the spring sunshine, and see everything abloom.

It is finally, really, the full flush of spring here in the north. Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness. Our wettest winter on record had even me (who normally doesn't really notice these things) grousing about the rain by the end of February. And then, even as it began to finally taper down, it still seemed the temperature would never rise. Some years it's harder than others, getting through those last weeks of winter. I'm always itchy, anticipating next season, but this year it was more difficult than normal - perhaps because I haven't yet established a mature garden, and so I was missing those early plants (salad burnet, sorrel) that help get me through 'til the rhubarb and morels arrive.

Of course, now we've had a few sunny days (even one gloriously sunny week!), I want nothing but summer warmth all the time. I keep reminding myself how sick I was of the heat by the end of last summer, to temper the cravings a bit - but it doesn't help much. I want to wear sandals and lightweight skirts and feel warm breezes brush my skin.

Soon. Already the cool days have something of a round softness to them; the edge has come off the cold. The hillsides and ravines are flush with the most brilliant new greens - of big leaf maple blossoms, of fiddleheads, of bright, immature leaves that have yet to settle down into the fullness of their summer emerald. Everything is new, and I am giddy with it all. Spring! Come again! At last!!