Living in Arizona, I've started to forget about seasons. Compared to most of the United States, ours are so extreme that really it comes down to a 4.5 month summer and a 7.5 month springfall. The leaves and grass don't all die so it's not really fall, it never gets cold enough for winter, and the spring really just feels like a temporary injunction against the ravages of summer.

Since I'm now on the eve of my 10th anniversary in this desert of delight, it seems fitting that I would notice today one small indicator of spring that we do have, and that is the rebirth of deciduous trees. Really, they don't lose their leaves until practically January. Only a few weeks ago I noticed that several of the trees on my property are sparsely decorated with dry orange leaves and worried that my neighbors might have at last poisoned my foliage as punishment for unleashing upon them a horde of boisterous kittens.

But today for the first time, sprigs of green are to be seen in every barren tree. Even the hedges which had largely succumbed to the unusually long Arizona frost are starting to rapidly spring forth from their sparse roots. The koi are hungry again, sucking noisily at the algae lining their pond and aggressively consuming every morsel I toss out to them. And the winter grass, still taunting me with its (expensive) fluorescent green hue, is dying off to give way to that which lies dormant beneath.

I never used to notice the passing of time. Maybe I noticed and just completely failed to commit it to memory, but it seems like I'm still only just starting to feel a discernible flow to it. Patterns, seasons, habits... I think I liked it better when I didn't notice them.

I'm rediscovering aspects of the Tao that I haven't paid attention to in a long time. Funny what stress brings out.