THE GRAND ORDER OF THINGS

Notes of Concern…
….Jackson Blair



The Grand Order of Things

According to the people who decide these things, spring has sprung!

The day before the official day I was awaking by a babbling brook in the mountains of Vermont. There was a chill in the air and a fire in the stove but as each hand of the clock moved forward there was more sunshine outside the windows.

By the time I was having my first cup of coffee, a few birds were at the feeder outside the large window and my dogs were making it generally clear they were ready to go out.

My wife and I were taking a break at the cottage of some great friends. They had welcomed us with our two Labrador retrievers into their vacation haven where their own four dogs were in residence.

To say we are all pet lovers would be to understate!

Later in the day my wife and I were driving back to Winchendon and she remarked how beautiful the countryside seemed. Ahead of us on our way to Vermont the previous day was a beautiful snow- covered peak. Today, as we drove south, another snow-covered peak, Mt. Monadnock, stood out in the sunshine filled day.

What a majestic reminder that winter was passing and spring was beginning. All in the natural order of things.

Dinner that night we returned to Winchendon from Vermont was with two friends from Connecticut who were driving up to Sturbridge with their two dogs, Australian Shepherds. You may get the idea we like people who like animals!

We were to meet them at a restaurant there for dinner so we were privileged to have some additional spectacular views as we drove further south in Massachusetts.

The changing seasons has always seemed to me to be an important part of life. Authors have referred to the “seasons in a man’s life” and songsters have had their way with each of the seasons, but for me it is the predictability and the welcome change that each brings to my life that I cherish so much.

I look forward to the different landscape that arrives four times each year.

Each season brings many things I like, and a few things I do not, but taken together they provide me with an escape from boredom, a challenge to be “out and about” and a chance to reflect on how perfectly predictable their coming and going is, almost as if they ran with the very finest of Swiss watch mechanisms.

So as we bid goodbye to winter and hello to spring, we get a new perspective on life, something to which we look forward, and the sure knowledge that as this season runs her course the next will be equally welcome, challenging, adventurous, and marvelous.