Sunday evening in spring.... ah.....

The clouds over the western mountains reflect the setting sun in the most delicate layers of tangerine, orange, butterscotch, pale rose, violet, indigo, peach, as if someone has laid layer upon layer of the thinnest tissue paper to drape over the darker gray-blue of the rumpled mountains. A mourning dove whoo whoos in the front yard. There was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning, and yet the fruit trees are blossoming in the yard. In the back yard, the tiny pink blossoms of the peach tree hang against the snowy mountains like Japanese calligraphy.

Things haven't been easy lately, and yet I feel healthier and more whole than I can remember feeling in years. It's springtime, yes, but it's more than that. I feel closer to achieving some sort of balance than I've felt in a long time. Between meditation class and improv class and writing and teaching and friends and the dogs, no part of me feels unfulfilled right now.

Recently, beauty has become more important to me. I've been able to keep plants alive longer than a month for the first time in my life, and I want to continue to add to them. Tonight I bought a little potted lavender plant to add to my collection. Last week I had a vision of myself as a tower swept clean, with a winding stone staircase wrapped in ivy climbing through the open space.

New Mexico can feel like a very safe place, a very healthy place, a very clean place. A pure place, a place to return to clean essence and nothing more.