Bright As Yellow

And you live your life with your arms stretched out.
Eye to eye when speaking.
Enter rooms with great joy shouts,
happy to be meeting.

And bright,
bright,
bright as yellow,
warm as yellow.

-the innocence mission

The sun seems to be the brightest on the coldest winter days. Today is one of those days, and I can feel myself lightened by the yellow sunlight filtering in through the windows. There is a warm glow that is beginning to fill all the corners of the house. A vase of yellow roses on the dining room table... I take one out and hand it to August, his tiny hands holding the flower, offering it back to me. My heart melts. We turn on some music and dance around the room.

I am wearing my new yellow sweater that I bought for ten dollars on an impossibly grey day, and the locket Steve gave to me for my birthday.

Sometimes it's the simplest things that can turn me around, make me smile... restore hope. I am prone to feeling blue lately, and grey too as winter drags on... but, today I want to be bright as yellow.

I can't remember a time when it wasn't winter

"It is the middle of January"... A friend recently said to me when I mentioned that I have spring fever. As if to say "good luck with that honey, spring is a long way off", and to jolt me right back to the reality of the harsh Minnesota winters. I have always been above all else a dreamer, but no amount of dreaming is going to make the flowers bloom. So... here I am right in the middle of the bleak mid-winter, and I have decided to give in to it... let it buy me a drink, maybe we'll dance the two- step around the room. Why not, what else is there to do. Let's face it, the winter is long and hard in Minnesota... the days are dark and I am trying to find the light. I'm searching for inspiration... a love letter, tracks in the snow that will point me toward home, and a little bit of hope for my weary winter soul.

Today I stumbled across just the winter inspiration I needed. Photographs by Alicia Bock on her blog Bloom-Grow-Love.

A Merry Little Christmas