First thing today I walk outside and stumble over my aging Italian neighbor feeding all the pigeons on our stoop. Grumpy to her husband (he’s a no-account Lothario, I’m not blaming her), kind to the birds: She’s a latter-day Saint Franny. My kitty watching from the window above is the Zooey in this equation, I guess; she loves those bewinged visitors and studies them with the ardent anxiety of a spurned suitor.
Me, I love everything about this tableau.
Every night lately I go to bed with the radiators burning and the bedroom windows flung open. Every morning I wake to tweet-tweet-tweeting, the thinnest pink light (gossamer thin, will-o’-the-wisp thin), fresh, fresh air, and chilly, chilly winds. If it weren’t for the low temperatures blocking me from my prettiest dresses, I’d be an unqualified fan of this cold spring. “More life,” she whispers like an Angel in America. “The great work begins.”