The song of a House Finch awakened me this morning. It seemed so normal that for a moment I didn’t realize that this is the first day this year I have heard a finch singing outside our apartment. I opened my eyes, and said matter-of-factly, “That’s a House Finch.” I said this matter-of-factly, but inside I felt extraordinarily pleased.

Later in the morning, when I was putting on my shoes to go outside, Carol’s cross-country skis caught my eye, leaning in one corner of our little vestibule where they have been standing since the last big snowstorm we had in January. They looked odd and out-of-place, and before long I will put them away in the storage closet until next winter.