More croci and snowdrops have bloomed in the front garden which gets the first sun in the morning. The purple crocus is the newest one. It sits among the many yellow croci. More snowdrops have bloomed beside the steps. Their white flowers are brilliant against the dark of last year’s mulch. Every morning the garden seems to have a new flower, a surprise for me.

A light grey cloudy sky hides the sun. When I look out the den window, the bare branches look stark. The sun usually softens the look of them. No buds have appeared yet, not even on my forsythia always the first to bloom.

When I was a really little kid, I didn’t notice the subtleties of the world around me. I noticed the changing leaves in fall, the trees full of green shading the sidewalk on my way to school and the snow and the rain. I didn’t notice the smell of summer rain or the strange color of the sky before a snow storm until I was a little older. I always wondered how I could have missed them, the wonderful pieces of the changing weather.

I remember how the sky would start to darken and the darkness would deepen and spread. I knew a storm was coming, a huge storm, and I got to watch it from the very beginning. My heart would beat a little faster as the clouds, dark, threatening and scary, moved above me. Sometimes I could even see the rain coming at me, and I’d run into the house. I’d sit by the window and watch it all unfold in front of me. The drops were heavy and there were so many the rain ran like a river in the gutters along the street. The houses near mine became indistinct, hidden by the rain.

I stayed and watched. Sometimes the rain stopped slowly small drop by small drop. Other times it just stopped, finished in its fury.