An Ode to March, written last year

Bonnie Patterson Payne 2013

March, you enter like a gentle tease, a preschooler at the parent’s bedroom door on Saturday morning to see if they are rousing yet, a gentle tease of lengthening days and melting snow and morning chatters of chickadees and sparrows at my backyard feeder.

Yet vestiges of "  old man winter "  still hold me in his grip,
knee deep piles of snow off the front deck and forecasts of spring blizzards, the snow shovel and ice chipper too soon to retire to the garage or 
parka, snow boots, gaiters & cross country skis to be hung up one last time.

This past winter did not wrap itself overly gently in its usual time to cocoon, read, meditate and reflect. The upheavals of loss, three of my girls, on to next life stages of marriage, independent living and yes, even death. No longer, the note on the kitchen table, “Grandma I am here and sleeping” punctuated with the smiley face or the calico kitten,
meowing at top of the stairs, ready to take flying leaps on the kitchen table or pounce to wake my sleeping huskies on the office futon.  As the lingering of winter, I keep the voicemail messages from last summer and refurbish my photo frames as reminders: girls in red dresses,
leaping in the rain of the September Vancouver wedding and a smiling, fat baby next to her pensive older self, blond-haired autumn modeling shot dappled in afternoon sun.

My younger dog, Nanuq curls contentedly with nose in tail on the chair next to me and older, reddish blond Siberian, Dysis, sighs deeply, fully stretched out on her side in the rug that she has meticulously arranged, first pawing and circling.

In this quiet Saturday morning, March comes as a gift, an in-between time of seasons.

I am reminded our Lenten a period of waiting, preparation and expectation for the joy of Easter. “ Lo, I am with you always! “ and in that, I am content.