Blue Skies

“Blue skies, smiling at me, nothing but blue skies, do I see.”

“Blue days, all of them gone, nothing but blue skies, from now on.”   

~ Irving Berlin

After a gray and gloomy winter, with over 80 days of snow on the ground – a record for St. Louis - and record cold temperatures, this is our second of two stellar clear blue-skied days.  What a difference the bright blue color of the sky makes!  Added to that, and although it is still only 23° F at 9:30 this morning, we are actually due to rise above freezing today, and the rest of the ten-day forecast looks even better, with highs in the 40’s and 50’s.  Goodbye snow!  (I won’t give too much thought to “hello, muddy paws” at the moment!)

As we ease toward spring here in the northern hemisphere, the increasing day length also adds to the cheery mood.  It’s so nice to leave work at 5:00 and come home with enough daylight to get the dog out for a romp, fill the bird feeders before dark, and have a good look around the yard.  Despite the very cold temperatures, in the past week or two the birds have started to warm up their voices.  I hear a cardinal calling as I write, and have heard sweet tunes from the song sparrow and the Carolina wren.  Our resident red-shouldered hawk has also become more vocal, as have the area barred owls. 

Although my spirits haven’t been particularly low, I have been plodding along through these 14+ weeks of treatment with my routine of visits to the hospital every Monday, getting into work when I can, coming straight home, and marking time from one week to the next.  I have felt somewhat isolated – definitely self-imposed – as I’ve chosen not to be out and about too much, trying to avoid catching any bugs that flit about more easily in the dry winter air.  My sense of being housebound has not benefitted from the many gray days we experienced in December and January.  It is amazing how uplifting these sudden changes to sunlight and blue sky are, as are the accompanying signs of movement toward the spring.  I can’t wait to sit on the patio, and soak up a little of the sunlight (being very careful to protect my exposed scalp from the rays of the sun) and soak in the progression of the changing seasons.