Hope

This is my desktop picture today (thank you, Webshots):



Lovely, isn't it? At first I just looked at it and sighed a happy sigh and said "Pretty." And sometimes, that's enough.

But I've been thinking a lot about signs and symbolism and meanings lately, and today while I was staring at it (thinking about something else), I realized why I like it so much. Why I chose that particular picture from all the kazillion more obvious "spring" flower pictures.

It's the perfect image for the stage I'm sitting in right now: PROMISE.

• I'm not quite graduated yet, but I can see it. (Saturday!)
  
• It's not really spring here in Montana yet, but I can feel it coming. The grass is greening up. The first leaves of my daffodils are popping through the snow.
• I don't have a contract yet--an editor to call my own--but I still hope for it. I read my book and feel the possibility there, tantalizing me, just out of reach. But possible.

The flower isn't facing us, the full force of its beauty head-on. We sense that the beauty is there, but around the corner. One more step and we'll see it. In the meantime we have the gorgeous symmetry of the back: less obvious, but still worth appreciating. Worth acknowledging before we move on.

It's the season of promises, the whisper of hopes rising. Not just for me, but for everyone.

Do you hear it?

One more step, and we're there.