What Still Sleeps

This morning Ayla woke me up with worry in her eyes. "Mom," she said, "Did we miss the field trip?"

It was too light outside and I let out a string of mental curses while fumbling for my phone. The alarm was still going off. Silently. It was 7:27, not 'miss the field trip' time but certainly 'big friggin hurry' time. We managed to get dressed and out the door by 7:55. Ayla was jumping-out-of-her-skin-excited to visit the Butterfly Pavillion and hold the tarantula. I was meant to go, but still feeling sick and thus let off the hook. So frustrated with this illness, this week of getting nothing done, that one happy day of tea and rest followed by six more filled with weariness of all I should be getting done, of all I've left undone.

But driving Ayla and Indy to school, I was filled with a subtle, quiet feeling of good. There was snow on the ground, the heater cranked high, the sounds of Ayla and Bejeweled on my iphone from the back, and a calm and quiet happiness settled content in my chest. A warm red valentine heart. Sun shining through.

I kissed the girls goodbye, Ayla mostly ok that I wasn't going to see the winter butterflies with her, and drove off to run errands, drop off movies, pick up a chai. I'd left my sunglasses at home, and then it hit me. Something had changed.

It was the light.

February 8th, 8:18 a.m., I drove around town feeling sick and tired but happy, happy still, because I realized the light had changed. It was brighter. It was warmer. It glanced gently off the snow and promised pollen, and rain fall, and buds, and bees.

I know that we still have Valentine's to get through, and St. Patrick's, and then Easter and it will snow, it always snows on Easter. But today was longer, did you notice? It was longer than the deep of January, and I remembered that there is time to achieve, but there is also time to rest. Those poor winter butterflies, like me, forget that January is for cocoons, for wrapping soft things around ourselves and letting the soil settle, letting it gather nourishment where it may and whispering to it only this: it is good, it is growing, it is wonderful.

So today I will rest, and maybe tomorrow, because it is time for that. The days will grow longer, the light will come full, and I will gather my strength. My soul has whispered to me promise of August, and I won't harvest now what yet is waiting, what still sleeps.