It feels as if it has been snowing for days. I shoveled the walk twice today, and still the snow continues. When I ran yesterday, the snow was just starting and it was beautiful, this transformation, but today my body aches for my bicycle and the freedom it brings and my eyes long for color, for that yearning that spring brings, undefined and unnamed, but there and always just out of reach.

The garden lies dormant and waiting and the bees are patient in their cluster. As I shoveled, I wondered how many of the hives will make it through. The seed catalogs have arrived over the past few weeks, and I think that I will spend the afternoon leafing through them, dreaming of summers bounty. Sometime, perhaps when I retire or perhaps sooner, I would like to have an herb garden as well. Coming inside, I grabbed a frozen bag of green beans from last summers garden and put them on the stove. A jar of home canned tomatoes hits the refrigerator as well. A bit of summer's warmth comes up from the basement with them and I thought the sweat of spring and summer was worth it.

Life requires patience and appreciation, and sometimes I think I am lacking in both. But thinking of an e-mail from someone who was no longer riding their bike due to the dangers involved, I think it also requires some risk if one is to savor it down to the marrow. Our time here is so short. I wonder sometimes if I will think it is worth it if I suffer a debilitating crash on my bicycle. Packman says he would do it again, but he is not me. What is it that makes us get back on our bikes again and again from the time we take our first tumble? Maybe it is like the garden only instead of green beans and tomatoes, I will bring out my memories from time to time when my body will no longer travel the roads my mind would like to and once again I will feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my shoulders.