Turning the Page

I remember when I was a kid my mother would never let me turn the calendar page before the first of the month.

Not even the night before. She was kind of obsessed about it.

Her fear stemmed from superstition that someone might die if the page were turned because "fate" would decide that tomorrow was taken for granted.

I just loved the idea of a new start - a fresh month with uncharted territory in it.

So now, I turn the page ... the night before, just before bedtime.  And nothing bad happens - and in the morning I can glance up during my busy morning routine and know just what day it is, what I have planned that week, and there's the little thrill of the brand new page.  Funny how that happens.

And the month I really love to put behind me is February.  For me it is the longest month of the year even though on the calendar it is the shortest.  Yet it happens in my least favorite time of year - the dead of winter.

I saw something a few days ago that gave me some hope that things would change, that spring was on its way.  

Icicles.

All winter long the snow has been piled high on everything and just the other day, I noticed that icicles had formed on the eave of our roof.  It meant that some of the snow had melted under all that white, and dripped to the edge of the roof.  As it hit the cold air it froze and formed ... bit by little bit ... icicles all along the edge of the roof. 

Then, just this past Sunday morning, I happened to spy a maple tree in our evergreen hedge, with the tiniest swelling on the tip of each little branch.  It's starting to bud. 


My heart leaped inside!

Only another month before I get to hear the mourning doves, see the geese fly back, and look for the first pussy-willows to emerge in the little garden spot outside where I work. 

It will be a while before I see my favorite spring flower - but who knows? maybe during that time I will also see that first crocus on someone's property ... not ours of course because we are up on a hill and pretty much out in the open - so the winter winds howl longer and harder here than they do in the more sheltered areas of the city.  But our turn will come.  

Spring always comes.

Turning pages, on the calendar, in the seasons, or in life - brings hope - hope that things will be better if they've been rotten, hope that things will be marvelous if they've been good.  

I guess I celebrated an anniversary of sorts yesterday.  Two years ago, I started on the journey that has begun to rid me of all the things that have bound me for so many years, bound me in slavery to the great god "Should" and its evil side-kick "shouldn't."  Such wounds from the past that I can't begin to describe how they scarred, marred me.  God enters into those dead places and brings hope where there was despair, sunshine and birdsong where it was only bleakness and silence.  

Which I guess is another reason why I turned the calendar page yesterday.   
Happy March!