Shake

Sunlight is falling and slanting against the wall and across the floors. The time has changed and it stays light much later into the evenings now. This creates a restlessness and a need for renewal. I want to shake things off like a dog shakes off water. Shake off all my old tries and old ways, all my heavy obstacles and traps I have set up for myself. I feel a need to find ways around those old things. To outsmart myself. I'm sure I've been asking myself the wrong questions. I've feared the wrong things.

There was a snowfall last night. We woke to a white world. I went out to get wood first thing in the morning. It's satisfying to make footprints in deep snow but at the same time a shame to mar the pristine expanse of it.

The day before I was out walking with Astrid in her stroller and I was shedding my toque and mitts in the warm afternoon sun. I was pushing the stroller through mud and picking branches to put in a vase at home and tie feathers to. (decorative Easter branches called påsk-ris in Sweden)
So very March for the seasons to flip back and forth like this.

Anyway, I want to start this spring as if it's the start of the new year. Clean off surfaces, pare everything down to the essential. I crave a bare simplicity. An airiness in which I can breathe and let new ideas float by.

Picture a pine table, free of any objects but a bowl of rising bread dough. Picture a windowsill with a small jar of flowers on it. Picture the line where the water meets the sky. But don't call it the horizon. Name it something new.