The Cusp of Spring

Today is the first day of March.  Is that spring murmuring, or just our wishful thinking?  Beginning a new month feels hopeful, especially since March edges us closer to sunlight and to green.

It’s only in the 40s today but I saw two men in the lobby wearing shorts, a sinewy teenager sporting a tank top, and a girl in sparkly flip flops.  Not quite that brazen, I’m admittedly a little desperate for winter to depart— I’m wearing a mint-colored windbreaker.  I’m lingering at the moody Dutch florals that mark the Pfister stairway.  I’m drinking gin swathed in basil and cucumber because it tastes like a garden.

In the box on the lobby stairs where guests can answer my story prompts, someone has left me a pink origami crane.  It’s a small, deliberate kindness.  I slip it into my purse. The bright little crane will gladden me if, after all my dreams of garden breezes and new life, it ends up snowing this weekend.

Margaret Muza’s studio smells faintly sweet this afternoon.  The bouquet of flowers she received a few days ago as a thank you for a portrait session are the fragrant showstopper in the room.  The hydrangeas are beginning to wilt, so she decides to photograph them as a still life.

Preserved in a tintype, these are the hardy flowers we need on the cusp of March.

They are in untouchable, perpetual bloom.

Tintype by Margaret Muza