Six months later....

I've gone through a long and harsh winter season. Literally and figuratively. But I was inspired to write today as I was walking home. Here are my thoughts:

Today's temperatures skyrocketed for our small town, going from mildly cold yesterday to near 60 today. People were wearing shorts, very few of us had coats, and all around we as a community were enjoying this mini heat wave that graced our campus.

Now, the snow is mostly gone. Almost all of it. And as graduation rapidly approaches, the campus will transform from Winter Wonderland to Alice in Wonderland. No, not really, but I liked it, so I wrote it. Point being, it's gonna look good. But it's not quite there yet. In fact, it's nowhere near "pretty".

The overall colors that hit one's eyes seem to be muted. Everything has an air of dead around it. No leaves yet. The grass is a very dull green with lots of brown spots. The creek is frozen over with some puddles lying on top of the ice and little ripples along the banks. Dead leaves cover everything, sticking out from underneath the snow, blowing across the sidewalks. Snowbanks that have been plowed to the side of the road are inundated with dirt, melting into streams of grime and mire. And large, fat ravens stalk the lawns.

And yet, beneath all the signs of death and time holding still, there's still some aspect of potential. You know that the green hues of the grass will spring back to life. Those dead leaves will get raked up or disintegrate and feed the ground again, and new leaves will spring out from the blossoms that pop up first. The sparrows will (hopefully) outnumber the ravens. The snow will melt, the creek will flow at normal speeds. And the sand and dirt and salt still left on the roads will be washed away.

So, the potential is there. And the lifeless signs are there as well. So where's the redemption? In the midst of feeling like I need to recover, to come back to life, to step back up to the beauty that I was created to be, I can only see a wasteland. But I know there's potential there! I know that underneath all of the muck, there's beauty to be seen, experienced. So where is it? It comes in the small things. Today, I felt the warm breeze on my face, blowing my hair, not the biting wind. I heard wind chimes softly ringing in the distance. And I saw the sun! It peeked through the clouds, warmed up the air, cast shadows, promised hope! Fulfilled light!

These little things encourage me. They tell me that the wasteland can be cleared, and the beauty will show once again.