Utah's Dixie

I love spending President's Day in Utah's Dixie! I left piles of snow and found partly green lawns and plenty of sunshine. I took my daughter and cousin to a fabulous park for some outdoor therapy that has been greatly missed up north. The bright sun was inviting a plethora of people to come play. I was pleased to observe the girls patiently waiting their turn. Additionally, they each helped other kids get on the equipment and gave them a push. This makes a mom proud.



 This twirly-gig is super fun and at this point I must point out that when I was a kid, we did not have these nifty cool play toys.

We did, however, have merry-go-rounds that could go at incredible speeds, provided the pusher was strong and fast. The trick was to pile on as many kids as possible and to avoid burning your bare legs on the rusted, heat baked metal.

As the girls played, I walked the paved trail along the trickling river, nuturing my soul with the sights and sounds of spring like ducks swimming placidly then taking sudden flight.

A small amount of water trickles slowly down it's bed reminding me that
the heat of summer will leave it dry. This is, after all, a desert. Though the sky is a vivid blue and the dirt is the red-orange of the hills, it's still rather barren without the trees dressed in leaves; their limbs are stark and bony. It reminded me of a story my Grandma Roundy used to tell me.

 
Shortly after the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley,  a young man named David Cannon brought his wife, Wilhelmina, to southern Utah to help start a settlement. Wilhelmina, or “Willie” as she was called, was not at all happy. She hated the hot, dry desert, and cried constantly. She pleaded with her husband to take her back east, where plants and trees grew more easily and the weather was more moderate.

“Everything is so ugly here,” she complained. “If you can show me just one beautiful thing in this place, I will make myself content and stop complaining.” David went up into the mountains and returned with a beautiful three-petaled blossom with delicate colors. Willie honestly admitted to both David and herself that it was indeed a thing of beauty.
               It was a sego lily, now the Utah State Flower.  reference

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes all it takes is the slightest shift of perspective to make that difference. This photo is of an old, dead tree lying on it's side not far from the river bed. The remaining trunk is bleached white and rather unremarkable but inside is a textured kalidescope just waiting for discovery. What will you see?

Springtime

These delightful springtime crocus remind me my Grandma Roundy.

"Utah weather is bipolar," Kira told me one day.  Maybe not politically correct but certainly reflective of the vicissitudes of my moods. Winter is historically hard for me. It's too easy to stay inside on the pretext of keeping warm but closing myself  to opportunities. Which is why spring time brings me hope. If these little crocuses can survive the chilling snow, and they do, then so can I. So every spring is a delight and a renewal, a refreshing energy injection for my body and a brightening of my soul.