On my lunch hour recently I drove over to my Dad’s for a cup of tea and a sandwich. It was a glorious fall afternoon, the kind that comes with a brilliant blue sky and crisp temperatures.  I saw a little girl playing on the sidewalk – hopping on one foot, planting two feet, hopping again. Hopscotch is timeless, and it struck a poignant chord in me to see the familiar number-filled chalk boxes drawn on the pavement.  May there forever be sidewalks and little girls playing hopscotch.

That same warm fall day I passed a mailman walking through a neighborhood, up and down the small sidewalks to front doors, letters in hand, dressed in a blue uniform with shorts and knee high socks. Down the sidewalk a short ways I saw a mother pushing her baby in a stroller, out for an early afternoon walk. In an instant my mind tries to drink in all the details – the soft blanket tucked lovingly around the baby, the little pink bonnet on her head, the brilliant sunlight dappling the leaves overhead as the mother and baby make their way down a quiet, peaceful street.

The days have been mostly unseasonably cold since than. So I’ll just keep holding on to that memory that evokes such feelings of peace and tranquility, and I’ll keep trying to design things that produce similar positive responses as well.

I mentioned in my last post that there was one handwritten note that I always remembered. It was from a 17-year-old boy I had dated a short time, but who remained my pen pal while he was out east at boarding school.  My heart would always smile when I saw the distinctive envelope from his academy in the mail.

One day after one of his missives arrived, I eagerly slit open the envelope.  Inside was a small card, and just these few words:

“For you, as for the crocus, the springtime.”

And after all these years, I treasure them still.