New Beginnings

Just when the caterpillar thought his life was over... he began to fly. - Proverb

The year is drawing in, its dead-end part looming. The house is dark as the boughs of the crabapple tree lean against the window. Snow is piled on the deck railing outside. 

Yet there's something soft in the air today, some new optimism, that rhythmic fiction of early spring, so sweet to be deceived by. I feel as if a page were turning. 

Maybe it's the weak winter sun shining through, gleaming off the moist bark of the trees. Maybe it's the quiet promise of a warming feeling underneath the bite of wet and the chill of the cutting wind.

So I close my eyes to old ends, and suddenly I know. 

Hold the smile, let the tear go. Keep the laughter, lose the pain. Look for joy, and abandon the fear.  

It's time to start something different and trust the magic of new beginnings.