aitäh

I finish this slice of life challenge where I started it. I am sitting on my living room sofa, my all time favourite place, where I have written many thousand words, drank hundreds cups of tea, and eaten several slices of cake. This morning is like many other March mornings with a partially cloudy sky, trees swaying in the wind, still waiting for enough warmth to dress in light green. The one lone crow I have seen several times this month has taken its view spot on top of a birch. Occasionally my inner critic used to take the shape of a crow but this month it seemed that he has had other interesting things to do and view and he didn't bother me at all. I enjoyed writing my slices with ease and playfulness.

I knew the challenge would end today and nevertheless seeing the date startles me. This is it? 

There are two things left to do.

First, I thank you from the bottom of the heart for sharing your slices and reading mine. When working alone in the home office, and I had many of these days this month, the human connections, the virtual ones included, are precious. They remind me I exist. Aitäh!

Second, I have written found poems from the comments for several years now, and here is a short one from this year: 

Life surprises us in many ways.
It is hard to settle into sleep 
When thoughts are spinning around in your head,
Dreams can conjure up many emotions,
It's so easy during hard times to not take time to think of delights.
As our lives continue unabated,
We create a tiny space for thoughts and words.
Voice your own questions about what's going on in front of you,
To write down your truth in a totally honest way.
You are the masterpiece! 
Enjoy your cake later today! :)
One more day to celebrate!

Tomorrow is Tuesday. See you tomorrow!

let the music play

Sitting on my living room sofa on this rainy Sunday morning, the morning of turning clocks forward, an incomprehensible continuous tradition that will mess with people's sleep habits for weeks to follow, I am determined to find music for Leigh Anne's Slicer Music Festival.

I am easily distracted. Following yesterday's the first truly warm spring day the rain is disappointing. It doesn't bother a crow who sits on a top branch of a birch tree and gently swinging looks over the area. At first my eyes deceived me to see it as a duck, so fat and round it was, but the brain quickly corrected this ridiculous notion. The crow is quiet. Surprising, considering how the crows usually are the loudest ones around. 

I keep drinking green tea. I finished eating two leftover slices of salmon-broccoli quiche and now am contemplating whether to eat a piece of leftover cake also. I ate in silence, almost silence, for the rain tapping on the windowsill creates steady rhythm.  

Choosing the songs for the party is a challenge for me, so much that I have left joining the party for the last minute. I don't listen to music much. I don't have a radio at home, I don't have a Spotify account, and putting on CDs is not a habit either. Usually when I drive, I don't listen to my car radio neither. 

There was a time last May when I listened to a song and sang along loudly on a long drive from a school visit. This is the first song I'll take with me. Billy Joel's Piano Man. The sing-along experience inspired me to write a Substack post. It is interesting how one song transported me three decades back to a Greyhound bus taking me from Washington DC to Bowling Green, Kentucky. In addition it reminded me how my boyfriend, now husband, got a wrong CD as a gift for me. 

I know now what the second song could be. Last Friday my hubby and I went to listen to a concert in a local culture house. We had seen the singer once before on her very first public concert when people knew her as an actress faous for her role as a young witch in a children's TV show. The first time she sang it was just her and her guitar on the stage. This time the stage included a piano, drums and a stand with four guitars and a banjo and five people altogether. The songs though were still similar - sweet, melodious and relatable. The song I am choosing for the party is called In Dreams and starts with the lines "In my dreams I dance on the tables. Mari Jürjens (skip ad)

Following this, the third song can't be anything else than Pink's Never Gonna Not Dance Again. During my coaching studies, when I was going through some complicated times at work, this song was a power boost to reclaiming my strength and spark. This is a song I chose when my supervisor asked to represent where I was in my life at this point. 

We will listen to the piano man and some guitar and then we are going to dance. I am glad I have chosen the pieces for the party and can now join others at Leigh Anne's place. 

The best gift

All three daughters are at home today.

Mom, dad, sister and nephews will come.

Family together - the best gift ever.

(To top this, my daughters made me a cake last night. They didn't allow to me go to the kitchen wanting to keep it a surprise. I guess they forgot I am the first one up in the morning. I peeked in the fridge and took a sneak-peek photo for you. The cream is a mixture of cream cheese and whipped cream, the cake is a regular sponge cake layered into three, on top of the first layer are fruit cocktail fruits, seems that they used some food coloring and sprinkles also.)

unacceptable truth

 "Mom, she looks so old," a little (maybe three years old or even less) girl said when passing me in a supermarket. 

I tried to ignore what I heard and focus on the next item on the shopping list. Where is the cheese?

"She looks old. Very old" the girl repeated.

I heard her mom speaking to her in a hushed voice, probably teaching not to say things like this out loud, maybe agreeing with her. 

Suddenly my "I am a masterpiece" attitude and celebratory mood after collecting sweet birthday wishes all day plummeted through the floor. Hearing a little girl call me old made me feel ancient. Thousand years old wrinkled witch.

From the girls point of view I was old. Not wearing make-up and having hair all messy likely made me look even more older than I would have appeared to her with added mascara and lipstick, or maybe it would have made no difference, in her world I was old. 

There's no arguing with a little person. Even though I would have liked to do so. I think it was the "very" in her sentence that stung me. I am not old. I mean I am fifty-three but this is not very old, old like grandma. I mean I could be grandma, and I'd love to be a grandma, but I am not old in the sense I picture old. My dad is old. He's ninety-one. My mom is old, she's seventy-nine. 

I didn't argue with the girl, but I kept looking out for her in the aisles, so I could avoid getting close and hearing again how old I looked.  

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Combining part of my yesterday's slice with some other writing I had done this week I wrote a Substack post Who am I?   (if you click on it and "subscribe" window appears, close it and you should access the post) 

birthday

Whether you want it or not, on a birthday everyone thinks of their age at least for a moment. The kids probably with excitement, not so much of the age but for the party. Later, some birthdays are more festive or depressing than others, depending on the state of mind and life. Even when someone personally might wish to ignore the birthday, someone will remind about it. 

Turning fifty-three doesn't create any extraordinary feelings this way or other for me. I am thankful for the sunshine and blue sky, that I have a quiet work from home day, that my hubby left me a gift of some loose leaf tea packages in a paper bag with owl pictures on the coffee table in the living room. 

Living room is where you can find me now. With a cup of green tea in a glass cup. 

I am the same as I was yesterday. I am content and happy in my life right now even if the world is in turmoil. The big rocks are firmly in place - my health, my family, my home, my friends, my current job. Happy doesn't mean that I am perpetually in a positive mood, dancing around and talking to birds nor that I see the world through pink glasses. It means that I make choices to have time for what matters, I am able to accept myself with my faults and my feelings, I practice mindfulness and gratitude, I have learned to care less about what others think and worry less about what might happen. 

You have heard the saying "I am a masterpiece in making." For now, I scratch the last two words and say with confidence and pride "I am a masterpiece." As arrogant and selfish as it may sound to some people, for me being able to say it has been the greatest growth. I have done a lot of learning and improving and for once I feel I don't need to strive for more and for better and can fully enjoy what I have achieved and how far I have come. 

You probably don't have to ask whether there will be cake for today. You bet there will be. 

I prefer choices

One morning, when I opened my email on a phone I was greeted with an unexpected change. Overnight the system had decided to organise my mail into categories. Now instead of unread and read mail I had categories I had not chosen nor asked for. I felt as irritations started creeping up my spine. 

Considering myself a patient person, I felt lacking it with systems, machines and algorithm making decisions for me. My car tries to teach me how to drive, when to change gears or when to rest, to the point of taking over the wheel when it thinks I am too close to the road side. The algorithms keep feeding me posts they think I am interested in. 

I would prefer if I was offered options and I made my own choices. I would prefer if the algorithm would feed me something new saying, "Broaden your world view, consider different perspectives, learn about things outside your circle of interest, find out how varied the world is." 

Fortunately, the phone had an option to turn back to the old view. I can try out the new version and then decide. 

the slow art of a blank page

Have you experienced the blank page paralysis? Of course you have. You are a writer.  

The stone still experience arrives unexpected. You have taken a sip of Marrakesh Mint with honey and sat down with the best intention to write. The sun shines on the gorgeous yellow tulips on the table. The mouth is filled with taste of oatmeal porridge and strawberries. Bubbling with excitement you open a journal and suddenly it stares back at you like Medusa. No chance of winning this staring contest.

Your can't even give up, go away, cry and complain, or give a tantrum. You just sit and don't blink an eye. 

What if you looked at the blank page as a piece of art. Whether the page is with lines, squares, dots or pure white you can experience the slow art of watching it with curiosity and mindfulness. Take your time. No rush. 

What do you notice? What might it mean? What sensations do you experience? What happens when you go "into" the page? What might be on the other side? 

My journal has on one side of the page a row of tiny holes with a wire coiling through them.  So strong. Holding everything together. Four more slightly bigger holes close to the wire hint that I could tear a page from the journal and put it in a binder. To keep it, to hide it, to forget it. The straight horizontal lines provide structure.  The rules to follow, the space to fill, the boundaries to accept. A vertical red line running through them on the left side of the page accentuates the order. This is the life line running though my unknown parallel lives. The red makes the blood warm in my body. The sensation returns to the fingers. I am able to pick up the pen. 

Right Now: the stolen moment

What if I wrote my slice right now? Can I? May I? Is this appropriate? What else would I do?  I stole a moment to write during a workshop time.

Right now I am:

:: sitting in a classroom on the third floor of Tallinn University

:: observing the paired-up participant talking and listening

:: hearing the hum of talking mixed up with the noise of the cars and piercing keowing of the seagulls

:: wondering whether the time I provided for this task is enough

:: forgiving myself that my explanation of the task had been a bit long and confusing

:: feeling thankful that the first reading task and discussion went well

:: appreciating that all these participants are active and gladly share their thinking

:: hoping that the participants find this task useful

:: trusting that we have practiced enough that the participant use active listening and questioning skills to support each other's reflection

:: feeling still surprised how did I end up teaching these mentors who support beginner teachers

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I wrote quickly during the workshop when the participants had partnered for reflection.

I edited and published it during a break.

Here' are my previous right now posts.

During the break I also practiced slow viewing of art in the hallway. 

an unexpected connection

Not yet quite awake, the temptation to check the email, to see whether I had received any further comments on my latest slice, was stronger than the wish to press the Asana rebel exercise app button and move the body. 

Four more comments, thank you, thank you, dopamine rushed into my body.

I'll check this one, only one, newsletter too, I obviously made an another excuse to postpone the physical exercise. 

Scroll, scroll, scroll the list of what the author had seen, heard, read. 

"I Don't Want Anyone to Read My Diaries, Yet I Can't Burn Them" said one link out of more than twenty.

A shiver ran through me. Last July I wrote a Substack post called "Burn my journals when I die."* The similarity of the titles made me curious. What's with the wish to burn journal? Who wrote it? What's their reasoning?

Click.

The link opened to the title and first lines only, teasing me. I needed a subscription to a newspaper. 

I don't want a subscription. 

But I want to read the article.

I don't want a subscription. 

But I want to read the article.

I don't want a subscription.

But I want to read the article.

The tug of war ended with the purchase of a discount yearly subscription (damn the offers like this), one I didn't need. Counting on remembering to cancel the subscription before it goes full price. 

To see that Dani Shapiro writes about something I had thought about months ago creates an odd zig-zag connection across the ocean and times, allowing me suddenly to be in the same thought sphere with a real and known writer whose book "Still Writing" I read twice and filled with yellow highlights to collect quotes. 

My wish to burn my writer's journals came from the fear of judgement and the reason to keep them stems from a wish to have evidence to myself that I am committed and grow as a writer. 

Her reasons for wanting to burn the journals after receiving a severe health diagnosis came from a similar wish to keep some things hidden from others and the decision for not burning her diaries emerged from meeting her former self on the pages when browsing her diaries. She says, "..it's in the very act of keeping a diary - "keep" being the operative word - that we stay on nodding terms with all our selves, rather than neatly excising the gnarly or embarrassing bits. That we own our our flawed, messy narrative rather than burn it, shred it, throw it away."

Her quote feels perfect to finish this post. 

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*(Here's the link to my Substack post, and when it asks you to subscribe, please close the pop-up window from the cross in the right upper corner or use the "no, thank you" button if this appears)

(And letting you know, I exercised before writing this slice.)

Book spine poem

On this quiet Saturday morning, hubby in the countryside, the youngest still asleep, no crows making a ruckus, the sunshine is too bright outside to light a candle for the writing magic. As if I usually did, but I don't because I forget, even though I have tried a few times in a hope for a miraculous writing aura to appear. I'll keep trying. Later. Maybe next fall.

"Magic is something you make" is an inspirational quote that faces me from the living room shelf. I'd like to stay I have strategically placed it there but this would be a lie. I placed it there to think where to hang it, and I never hung it. The accidental spot is the just right spot to nudge me. 

Today it nudges me to leave my sofa and seek out books to make a book spine poem - a fascinating concept and writing form that I learned many years ago and create once a year in March.

The coaching and leadership books and the recent books in Estonian don't speak to me today, not poetically. I bow and leave them be. 

Two books step down from a shelf in the living room, both arrived as cheer-me-ups from a trip to a mall where I struggled with buying, and in truth eventually ending up not buying, a new pair of shoes. The other two books travel from the bedside table to the living room windowsill, depending where I decide to write. Both I ordered after attending a two-day workshop with my favourite writing teacher. From my bedside table I pick a book that I bought in Heathrow Airport to support a workshop idea that my friend and I are brewing. 

Arranging the books this way and that, I look for the order that sounds the best today: 

The science of happiness
the creative act
the art of noticing
your brain on ink
poetic medicine

eating my words

No one else here. Great! I love when the gym is empty. On workday mornings at 9:00 o'clock it happens often. I feel like I am super rich and have a personal gym. 

For years I thought I would never lift weights. Yoga, walking and dancing are my exercises. Lifting weights seemed way beyond my sportiness level. Lifting a tea cup was surely a better choice. Instead of arm curls I liked curling up with a book. Dumbbells - well the name speaks for itself. 

After passing the mid-century point in my life all the algorithms started sending me information about the importance of weight training. Seeing something many times makes it sticky. The science behind was compelling. My wish to stay healthy in later decades grew.

Last spring I hired a personal trainer. She took me to a large gym, scary large, walking from one end to the other was an exercise in itself. The machines looked like transformers and I was certain they occasionally crushed people. All the videos I had ever seen of gym accidents and additional ones created by my imagination terrified me. My need to please the trainer kept me put and I followed her instructions.

When my five private lessons were over, I didn't want to drive to the big gym and checked out the local places. The school gym was in a basement, no windows, clunky machines and too many students. The beauty centre gym was on a third floor with modern equipment. I decided to give it a try. 

When I discovered that I was usually by myself and the view was gorgeous, I grew to like the gym and I grew my strength. For the past ten months I have gone to the gym two days a week with a few exceptions. Sometimes when I go, I think to myself - who would have thought I would be a woman who lifts weights. I have eaten my words.

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Though this is a case when I had to take back the never, then here are three cases I am certain, 100% certain, it won't happen (unless aliens reprogram my brain):

• I will never ice swim. If humans were meant to do it, we'd have thick fur like polar bears.
• I will never run or ski a marathon. It seems like a self-inflicted torture.
• I will never participate in a cooking show. Watching them from my living room sofa already stresses me out and I cry sometimes feeling for the participants. 

I highly respect and admire the people who do all of the above, being extraordinary, showing impressive determination and dedication to achieve the dreams. I salute you.

A view from the gym window:

Welcome spring!

 "Look! The crocuses are out," my husband pointed to me on our walk in the local neighbourhood.

"Finally! Perfect timing. Welcome spring!" I was deeply happy.

We had seen small signs of spring during the past few weeks - a bit more sunshine, the snowdrops - but these had felt like teasers. The warmth hadn't increased, no small buds on trees and bushes visible yet, and occasional snow and frost reminded that winter was still officially present. 

Excited about the crocuses, not caring how I might look to others, I kneeled on the grass patch in front of the local council building and snapped some photos. 

The small yellow flowers made me think that this is where the sun had stepped and left its footprints.  

a glimpse

In my desire to write a descriptive slice, I tend to list what's here and now, like today - the deceptive sunshine overpromising the warmth, the wind inviting the trees to dance, the quietude of the living room, the comfort of the PJs, the empty teacup, an orange post-it reminding me to write the daily slice. 

Yet, on the quiet morning there isn't much action, pardon, there's some - the morning exercise, the shower,  a cup of the tea, an email to ask my workshop participant to add to the minimal feedback they provided yesterday. How amusing that I have listed each action as a noun.

Sitting on a sofa and listening to an audio of a writing course, while both "sit" and "listen" are verbs, are void of anything visible happening. The action is in the head. The only way to add action is to pick up the pen and write something. The obvious hope is to have a brilliant idea to share. 

Scrap the hope. What follows is the unedited list of what phrases and sentences I chose to record, creating something that looks like a dialogue but in fact is alternating snippets from two different people.

BK (audio lesson by Beth Kempton): messy notebooks, shaping decisions, abandoned pieces
Me: Listening is hard. My mind goes wondering. Closing the eyes doesn't help.
BK: trace the evolution of an idea
Me: the slow mornings of home office are so radically different from school mornings 
BK: We decide what right looks like.
Me: I can't buy another book. Technically I can, but I shouldn't.
BK: Be bold with changes.
Me: There's minimal revision during this blogging challenge.
BK: Write, cut, rewrite. In the shadows of the all writers.
Me: The dust has settled on the shelves. Must clean. How is this helping with the writing of the slice?

Going against the lesson's task of revising boldly, I post the raw, not yet fully making sense piece, a glimpse, though not original messy handwriting photo of my journal page but the typed up version, of what you can sometimes find in my journal. 

how to handle disappointment

 Really? This is all you wrote? I understand you are busy but really? I stared in disbelief at the responses on the feedback form.

I had written a beautiful heartfelt thank you letter, spent time crafting and editing supportive reflection questions for the feedback form and sent both out to the small number of participants who had been part of all three two-day modules of a course I had created for school teams to thoughtfully and systematically implement instructional coaching. 

Since I had already heard positive feedback from the participants and in the letter I had mentioned that they need to take time for a longer response, and during the last module we had spent time on learning about reflections, speaking about the way to write them in depth, and even practiced writing, I was expecting, I was rather sure I would receive some paragraphs that I could provide to my boss and the education fund to prove that the course had been successful.

Today I received the first response. Every section had one vague sentence. Even my fourth graders used to write longer reflections. 

Disappointment landed heavily on my chest. Like a dark boulder it rolled across my heart and crushed my mood, my hope and my self-esteem. The shattered pieces flew around my living room office, sparkled in the spring sun, mocked me. I lost any wish to continue doing any further work, closed my laptop and scrolled Facebook instead.

I saw a cute smiling lamb video and sent it to my closest group of friends. I had wanted to share how down I was but since it was still too raw I chose to wave to them with the video instead. 

Cute lamb photos don't help to handle disappointment. They create a temporary smile. 

I went for a walk. Melting snow, wet and muddy paths, chilly wind and sun lowering behind the trees, I ignored all of this, marched along, fumed and mumbled under my breath, and had an internal debate whether to let it go or ask for another response. Thankfully I had taken a longer route, so the aerobic exercise dissolved the wish to scold and reprimand and complain and morphed into an idea to gently ask for more feedback. 

When I got home, and checked the friends' reactions to the lamb video, the lamb looked even cuter than before. 

questioning my choices (or not)

I postponed getting new reading glasses as long as possible, but when the glasses were scratched and no cleaning restored clear vision and the haziness of things restrained the eyes and created headaches, I had no other choice than to go and buy a new pair. (Well, there was the other choice of not seeing clearly and living with the headaches.)

Once the optometrist had figured out the right sight, a bunch of questions followed:

Do you want regular thickness or should we thinner the lenses? - Hmmm. Thinner them.

Do you want clear or slightly yellow lenses? - Hmmm. Clear.

Do you want with screen protection or without? - Hmmm. with protection.

Great. What kind of frames would you like? - Like my old ones.

Sorry, we don't have this model. - (I know that five years has passed.) Something similar.

The rows and rows of frames made me feel dizzy. Fortunately the optometrist was kind and searched out five kind of similar pairs and I was able to choose one. 

But then...

Would you like to buy a new case for your new reading glasses? 

Two drawers open, my choice making capacity depleted, the colours and patterns started dancing in front of me. I kept staring at the cases. Do I want single colour, patterned, floral, with a picture? 

This one  - I picked up a case.

Are you sure?

Yes. Easy to find in the bag. 

I had chosen a pink happy face case from the kid section. No turning back. Only going forward. With playfulness and clear vision.

letting go

Several sequential soft plops made me lift my eyes from the computer screen I had been glued to in order to finish a suggestion for a professional development course for a fall semester. 

Fifteen week-old dried yellow tulips in a vase on a coffee table had started letting go of their petals. 

Outside, a sunny but cold day made sure we knew it was still officially winter and give a promise that spring would arrive in near weeks. 

Inside I was in PJs because I had started writing the proposal first thing in the morning with fresh head to get it done before breakfast and then write my slice and post it early.

The petals were like a sign for me to let go of that hope. The proposal writing was more time-consuming than I had anticipated. I felt as a bit of annoyance started to stir in me for getting the request from the university so late close to the deadline, some annoyance with myself that I hadn't done anything yesterday morning. I needed to let go of this annoyance. It wasn't helpful. 

I have had to let go of several things during this Slice of Life writing challenge this month. 

• Letting go of the need to create highly engaging, deeply thoughtful, whimsical or lyrical peices
• Letting go of the desire to write and post first thing in the morning
• Letting go of the guilt that I don't comment as much as other kind participants do
• Letting go of the embarrassment of making spelling mistakes

I have shown up. I have written and published when I can. I have written short and quick slices of anything that wants to be written at that time. I have commented as much as I can. I forgive my mistakes. 

a surprise morning delight

Hurrying across the cobblestone streets of Old Tallinn, I worried I might be late to a Saturday breakfast date with a friend. We had planned, scheduled, cancelled, rescheduled, and postponed this date starting from mid January. Life had rolled unexpected obstacles to both sides. In the morning I was glad I had not received another message pushing our meeting further away. 

It was past 10:00a.m. Even though I had woken early I had not eaten breakfast knowing that the restaurant had a decent choice of breakfast and tons of delicious cakes. I even skipped drinking tea ready to rely on their tea selection.  

When I entered the fifth floor spacious room with floor to ceiling windows looking towards the old town, it appeared empty, not a person in sight. I spotted my friend sitting near a window behind a large monstera. The waiter came from a kitchen. 

After I had freed myself of my coat and scarf and after exchanging smiles and greetings I noticed that my friend had already ordered a cup of something.  I looked closer. Oh my, the cuteness of her cafe latte art was adorable. 

I forgot my tea and ordered mango chai latte instead. Just because of the foam art. What a surprise morning delight to add to already wonderful day of spending time with a friend.

my forever trap

Yesterday I had missed one train because a coaching client stayed a little longer to chat. This gave me almost an hour to walk down one of my favourite streets to the seaside and back before the next train. By the time I sat on the train I was tired from the top of my head to my toes, head from the session and feet from the walking. 

My train ride home is forty minutes. The best things to do on a train: read, people watch, nap. Reading is my favourite option and usually I have a book in the bag. Not yesterday.

Phone is another option. Reading one newsletter after another I came across the same book title. "Tiny Experiments" twice. 

Almost as if I had a mental black out I suddenly stared at the book I had bought with one click fully driven by a desire and without even a split second of cognitive consideration.

Before I had time to start reading, the phone indicated a low battery. Bad luck, my charger was at home like the physical book, the absence of which led me to scrolling the phone. 

Or maybe it was bad luck that the battery didn't die before I bought a book. It would have saved me from falling into my forever trap of buying yet one more book. No regrets though. 

I need a switch to turn off dreams

When I woke up this morning, I seriously thought that I needed a switch to turn off the dreams, or at least have a remote so I could choose the channels. Something light and warm and inspirational, please

Tonight's dream had made me almost cry. Since I work from home most of the time now, I don't have a school I belong to. I miss my former colleagues. In my dream I went for a surprise visit at my former school and went to my friend's classroom, smiling big, so happy to see her. She scolded me. I apologised repeatedly. She sent me out of the classroom. Later in the teachers' lounge. She braided everyone else's hair but not my hair. This is where I gave a little whimper in my sleep. 

In the dream the situation followed with a solution. I created an app with an email address like.me(at)google.com, and whenever I felt lonely, I wrote to it and received a supportive friendly email as a response. 

Still. I'd rather sleep without dreams. 

something to be certain about

No, no, no, no, no. No more snow, please. 

When my husband pointed to me that it had started snowing again, and I saw the white outside curtain from my living room window, it felt as if a heavy blanket of snow fell on me and buried me into cold and darkness, even though I sat in the warmth of my home, drinking nettle-raspberry fusion, summer taste. 

March snow shouldn't have surprised me. Decades of experience and memory had prepared me for this. None of this prevented the disappointment and a mood shift.

I thought of the photos my friend has been sending to me from the botanical gardens in the Southern Estonia - snowdrops, blue anemone, crocuses, first green tips of leaves. We too have snowdrops under the window but not much more. 

The surprise snow may have arrived today but something to be certain about is that it won't last and spring will arrive. 

Let it snow. For now.