It’s been a rough go–all these winter bugs and snags on our systems. All of us in family and community taking care of each other. Boy, it’s been a tough go. I am just starting to breathe normally and not sound like an asthmatic, life-long smoker, hackasaurus rex. Lots of medicine later, boxes of herbal tea, and groves of lemon trees. I can breathe.

Today I finally brought my kids out to the garden–we caught the plum blossoms still blossomed, not already blown off and gone. Even in our delicate states, the flowers had hung on.

Even through sick couch-living, when it was enough to make toast for my kids, and then plunk back down. Even through a week of that, the shivers, and two very tropical, unseasonal rainstorms. Those ivory and pink paper thin buds and flowers hung on.

My girl biked, our boy scootered, we galloped and sauntered, skipped, and plotted through the gardens, over stones and branches. We made it.

Flowers with them, and the excitement of running in open-air, under a G-d of sun and unfurled blossoms, was magic. It was joy.