Welcome Wisteria.

The Wisteria is in bloom. It's always a happy day when I see the first bunches of purple flowers peeking through the green leaves. This year, they are as magnificent as ever.

The vine is old...almost 100 years old, but still, each year it bursts forth with these glorious blooms. No matter how much it gets chopped back by my clipper wielding husband, each spring it comes back to life. In the winter, it looks dried up and as if, surely, there is no way it could bloom again. I see it and think, ah, the poor thing has finally given up.

Yet it proves me wrong year after year.

This winter has been the same for me in a lot of ways. Some of the darkest days when I thought that I would never quite see the sunshine again have given way to the warmth of spring. And although things are not what they were before, beauty and grace can still emerge in different ways.

Check out the flickr pictures to the right to see photos of the Wisteria that I took this morning. Isn't it beautiful?