Oh, we are springing. Springing forward every day now. It is actually, the new year. 2022. Looks like death still, doesn’t it? Everywhere you go people are masking themselves against certain destruction from someone else’s breath. Okay, let’s just breathe. Freely. For once in about five years since Donald Trump first became our president. Not to say he still is. But some people even cling to that. I think Joe Biden is doing just fine for us. That’s what I hear anyway. But I’m a weird girl. Well, spring is surely coming in a month or so. February 22 is always my first day of spring. I gave birth to my 2000 girl Chloe Fern on that day. At 2:22am. She was 22 inches long and 122 ounces. And without fail the crocuses appear on that day every year since then for me. So, she’ll be 22 this year. I always thought I’d have something different to say to her when she was eighteen. Then I thought twenty. But that was only a year of pure hell. Which started when she was eighteen actually. And she still hasn’t forgiven me fully for that digression into the mental health system. But oh, I say hesitantly, 22. Yes. The sweet year. She’s doing great all on her own. Graduation with her master’s degree tomorrow in fact. From the University of London. Wow, what a girl. But, oh right, I’m her mother. Not exactly a shining star for the past four years. Before that I kind of was. So last year on 2/22/2021 I wrote on my calendar “came in.” And I meant it. After three and a half years of going in and out of the hospital and then just barely existing under covid I came in to a new version of my work. Still isolated, still alone. Still in the sight but much more real in every way. And I have worked so tirelessly day and night since then. It’s been very beautiful really. I have healed so much. And I have written so much. So many programs, so many hours of creating a green world. My psychiatrist just asked me this week, “How’s your illness?” Well this is what she really means, “How’s your work for God?” “Well, fine,” I said. “Does your mind function, are you making sense, can you carry a thought?” “Yes,” I said. But not convincingly, I’m sure to someone who doesn’t ask me how my book is going, doesn’t ask me about my work. Doesn’t ask me my experience of life, but asks “How are your symptoms?” And, “How is your illness?” So, here, you see me, right? Still in the same exact old boat? But oh, spring. Didn’t I say this last spring? I did, in fact. But what is life anyway? But a progression into wholeness. So, I am much more whole than ever. I haven’t succumbed to death yet although I’ve felt like it many times. It’s just a pure impossibility with my version of existence. So here we sit, on the cusp of spring. It’s snowing out right now, but the leaves are starting to bud red on the trees. The birds are constantly singing. Only about five more weeks, really. Then new life returns. With all of my heart and soul, with every single fiber of my being I hope that means that I am finally permitted to be reborn. If I’m not still, then what? I go forward. Endlessly forward. But we are moving into something, aren’t we? Please tell me yes. We must be. Everything I’ve done must matter, because it just does. Every step we take counts, I think. So let’s step boldly and without fear. Let’s step without remorse and complaint. Breathe, I say. Deep inward breath. For the good of spring.