Yesterday was an overly warm spring day, one of those flukes where it got up to eighty degrees when temps are normally in the fifties.  Things are just starting to blossom and bud around here; it’s been a slow start.   A few of us in the office took an exercise break and went for a walk on the property surrounding our building, down the shaded road buffeted by deep woods on either side, then up the hill onto a flat, open area that affords a view of some foothills beyond the river.

Up on that flat area, there was a strong, pleasant breeze blowing that was whipping my hair back.  I could feel the steady cadence my feet were making on the road up and throughout my bones.  Subtle wafts of green scented the air and came in waves that literally made my nostrils flare.  The electric awareness of the season awakening, the pure instinct of it, and that of being present and alive was so powerful.  At that moment, a childhood memory came to me with a crystal clarity – that of prancing and running through the fields and neighborhoods, one with the wind, the sky and the earth,  pretending to be a wild horse.

I took a deep breath of this spring air and it was as if every molecule pulsed – a  reaction to the season on the most visceral level.  The intoxication was almost too much to bear.  It was all I could do not to shake my mane, let out a whinny and gallop away.