There are signs that precede good news.
Today is Easter, and what better way to bring in the day than at the park with Ivy, watching the sun rise over the river. The universe had other ideas.
We arrived too early, for one thing. I walked; Ivy ran. I constructed sentences in my head; she sought out deer scat. I looked to the sky, then to my phone to see the time. The sun should have been up by now. We continued to wait, Ivy chewing sticks, me imagining them in our fire pit.
There are sounds that precede good news. The whistle of a train, the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker, the ringing of a church bell. There are sounds that seem to start too soon: the cry of the robin while the sky is still dark.
The sky began to lighten, and yet there was no breakthrough. I felt anticipation, contemplation, aggravation. I’m not good at waiting. Realizing the clouds were preventing my Easter sunrise, we headed for home, past the blushing tulip tree, the lemon-yellow forsythia, the purple-and-green-tipped hosta. None were in their complete fullness, and yet they shone.
Perhaps the clouds tempered the fullness of my sunrise. Perhaps fullness is not what I anticipated. Good news comes in all forms.