I am pretty well broke* and I have a couple of projects that require my attention in a big way, and given the logistics of two people juggling respective schedules, it’ll be a few days before I get to spend the evening curled up with the object of my affection again.**

But the weather is glorious, and all the spring flowers that make the south briefly magnificent beyond measure are blooming. The birds are calling, the sun shines and the dogwoods bloom and the wisteria sends slinking tendrils out to throttle the rich and the poor alike.

Despite all stresses–contracts mailed to the wrong address, deadlines looming, recovering but grumpy cat, a few days of solitude, paintings twisting and wriggling when I try to pin them–there is an itchy kind of joy that fills up the back of my skull and the hollow spot under my breastbone. Something to do with spring and love and the belief that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well (as St. Julian is supposed to have said.)

Or, as my grandmother, who wasn’t a saint, but was arguably an avatar of somebody or other*** also used to say, “It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.”

*and it is thanks to the Taxman painting and the kindness of readers that I am only “pretty well” and not “utterly.”

**Good for productivity, I grant you–“Damnit, if I can’t cuddle, I might as well paint!” Still.

***Seriously, if I had to nominate anybody…