February

At the start of this week I had the pleasure of visiting Georgtown, Kentucky, which boasted friendly people, a lovely campus, and 45 degree weather. Even though my trip was work-related and I had to be mentally on-the-ball, I returned to Wisconsin feeling refreshed from having gotten away. My parents in Connecticut are getting blasted with snow; my in-laws in Chicago are getting blasted with snow; it was zero degrees here yesterday--and yet, despite all of that, I had my first glimpse of spring--

I heard a bird singing.

The first bird of the year! I have a witness, too: a colleague crunching with me across the sunlit parking lot, getting ready for another day of classes. We both stopped in our tracks and just listened. Joy.