Signs of Spring

As you recall, school children up here call their week off March break, not spring break. It's now been about two weeks since the end of March break, and I now see...dare I say it...a sign of spring.

Today I'm getting a pedicure, thereby demonstrating my faith that someday, my feet will be freed from snow boots and thick warm socks. Someone else will see my feet! I will even wear sandals again!! My feet and toes need to be cleaned of the detritus of winter. They need massage to dispel the lingering remnants of cold-weather chill.

Actually, I know that Sandal Day is coming--I'm visiting my sister in Tucson in a couple of weeks. This is actually a pre-emptive pedicure. I don't want the pedicure gal we're seeing in Tucson to recoil in horror at my heels and sole calluses, as she did last year.

And so, since I know I will be showing my feet in a couple of weeks and therefore have scheduled my pedicure on purpose, does the fact of a pedicure today really demonstrate the approach of spring?

I look out my office window at acres and acres of snow on top of frozen lake. This morning, the thermometer read 0 degrees F (or as we call it in this household, zero American). The driveway was plowed this week and the plow turned up grass that's straw-colored, dead. It also added bulk to snow that sits between two and three feet deep next to the driveway. Okay, so maybe signs of spring aren't really happening anywhere except in my head. Maybe I am creating this one, this pedicure, because I need it in my (still iPod-free) wintry state.

Or maybe, just maybe, my desire to create something that I call a sign of spring is itself a sign of faith, of belief that spring will indeed come. Perhaps I'm a believer, all right--simply an impatient one.

A believer with feet that feel fabulous.