A Gift of Spring

I spent one of the first truly remarkable days of the season in the car with two work colleagues driving down to Pueblo and then back up to Colorado Springs for meetings. The sky was the kind of frenetic blue that only comes in May, a color that signals he birth of bunnies and boils the blood of high school and college seniors, alerting them to the ferocity of the coming summer only a few weeks away. What I saw of it, between the walk from the car to the dark cement and stucco community college buildings where our meetings were to take place, was from behind a sealed window, traveling at 75 MPH. I watched the ragged sweep of The Rockies rush by on one side and the budding washed out green and yellow plains on the other, wishing I was working from home, where I could sit in the sunshine on the patio with Dunc and work on my laptop in-between walks.

It was nearly a twelve hour day by the time I finally got home. The sun had begun to move down the horizon and the light had settled and cooled. The heat of the day had burned off and cool air was rising up from the grass. Ken had started dinner and fed the children and I could feel weariness creeping into my muscles. As I gathered my things and locked the car I looked up into the open window from which the music of Glee was drifting out and saw Roo's face, ears perked up and head cocked, waiting for me. His shoulders gave a little wiggle and I could hear the soft, trembling whine of his voice. Almost immediately my spirits were lifted. I bounded up the thirty-seven steps, my bag bouncing against my hip, the remnants of that morning's tea sloshing in my mug. He was waiting at the door for me, dancing and chirping, eager to take my wrist in his mouth and pull me inside. I barely had time to set down my things before he'd grabbed the tail of my shirt and was pulling me back toward the door.

It took no energy at all t walk him. It was a beautiful evening, with a soft, warm breeze sifting through The Run, the last of the white blossoms raining down around us from the crab apple trees, alighting like thumbnail-size snowflakes on the long, moist grass. The birds were singing loudly in the willows while the mourning doves were lowing from the eaves above us. I could not have asked for a better homecoming and Roo could not have granted me a better gift.