To welcome in the spring...

The forecast calls for rain tonight and tomorrow. But for the last several days, spring has been heralded into our lives, with virtually cloudless skies, and temperatures that make you want to loosen your tie and open your jacket. Young women in summer dresses sit in the grass eating their lunches. Near the Tidal Basin, the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom, under the watchful eye of the large bronze figure of Thomas Jefferson, a renaissance man who longed to retreat to his beloved Monticello and tend his garden.

I had a dream last night. I was riding my bike at a shopping center in Maryland. I came across a dozen or so of my dancing friends. One who was once a close friend of mine stayed on the opposite side, as if to hide, while the others awkwardly exchanged pleasantries. After a brief time, they looked ahead, and realized their dinner reservation was due. They excused themselves and hurried away.

Then I woke up.

People attach different meanings to dreams. Some attach no meaning at all. Others see the unconscious mind at work, revealing its true self to the surface. Still others see them as premonitions of things to come. My own view is somewhere in the middle of all that.

The work continues. I wish I could be in Toronto in April, but it may not be practical this year. Come this weekend, a group of zydeco fans will hurry down to Fort Lauderdale FL for a weekend music and dance festival. I won't be among them, not yet. I thought I might save most of those sojourns for when my son is out of high school.

"But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."