Out here where I live, in the far left corner of Washington State, it can be hard to decide just when spring has finally arrived.  That’s not because lingering snowdrifts and patches of ice won’t go away, but pretty much the opposite. We don’t  have the sort of winter that really matters, unless you count heavier rain and gray skies that are really dark.  The grass on the lawn never turns dead and brown, it just stops growing very much, and being outdoors in shirtsleeves does not count as fun.  No matter…one day the bite is out of the air and you know that the lawnmower is going to  need fresh oil and a good cleaning before long and you don’t hve to imagine so hard to see where leaf buds are showing up on the trees.  Then one day you can’t escape it…the air feels good on your bare arms and there are real leaves everywhere and you can hear the chug of a lawnmower at work and smell fresh-cut grass across the street.

For me that moment is like the opening of a great ponderous door that never fails to reveal new challenges and opportunities in life that I never imagined until now.  You may call it something else, but I know you feel it, too. For me it is the call to explore those subtle feelings, those hints that may turn into thoughts if only I can give them room to grow a bit.  It’s the sort of thing I talk about in the early chapters of A Gift of Dreams, a gift I want to share with anyone who wants to listen.