The Promise of Spring

This afternoon a beautiful woman stopped by my office for a minute. We talked briefly inside and then I walked outside with her. The sun shone brightly with a golden light, creating a warm late-winter day--starting to feel like spring. As we stood and talked beneath a leafless tree, the sun casting a network of shadow branches across her hair and face, I gazed at her smiling eyes and was taken back to similar warm late-winter days 10 years ago when we were dating.

Those were bright, exciting days of anticipation--just days before tulips would emerge, weeks before blossoms would burst open, and a month before we would become engaged (right). After a long winter of cold-weather dating activities (before I knew just how much this California girl dislikes the cold), Christine and I were eager to buy into the promises of spring, and we looked for any opportunity to get out in the sun and enjoy the progressively longer days.

Today we remembered together one such day a decade ago when the sun's angle was not too different from what it was today--the light similarly golden, similarly filtered through the bare branches of trees that had not yet leafed out. Lured by the sunlight and the anticipation of warm days to come, we packed a picnic and headed to a park not far from my office to kickstart spring and inaugurate the outdoor season. There we found an unexpectedly chilly evening and a frigid wind, but we huddled together in blankets and sweatshirts and looked across the valley, enjoying the setting sun and each other's companionship.

From where we stood today, we looked toward that park on the side of the mountain and smiled at our youthful spontaneity. Our fingers intertwined and we talked of love and philosophy and Christine's upcoming 5k race. The conversation was as pleasant as the weather, the smiles were as bright as the sun, and the relationship held all the promise of spring.