Spring in the big city

As soon as the semester ended, my parents and I boarded a train and headed to Big City Like No Other to visit Urban Sophisticate Sister and her husband. We were eager to see how my sister is handling the exciting changes that are happening in her life: she's pregnant with twins. Urban Sophisticate looked as beautiful as ever: it was if she'd just stuck a basketball under her shirt. In the evening, when she was lying comfortably on the bed, I did reiki on her abdomen, and I could feel my two newest nieces kicking and squirming.

After the long winter we've had — months where every road was lined with walls of snow — I was delighted to be in a city where the trees were bursting with green, and flower petals were scattered over the sidewalks. The warm weather had brought out street vendors, whose tables were piled with fresh fruit, old books, and racks of women's clothing. Bright tulips blooomed all up and down the wide streets.



Everywhere, we saw flowering trees: crabapple, ornamental pear, cherry, magnolia, and redbud. Pink and white bloomed against concrete and brick. Somehow, we'd managed to arrive on that first warm weekend, when it's cool enough that the sun still feels wonderful, when city dwellers everywhere are going to the nearest park to sit in the sun, when the teenagers are out playing basketball, and when everyone is happy that spring has arrived at last.