Squirrel Synchronicity

Ah, the first joys of Spring! 

On a still-cold walk through the neighbourhood I noticed her, sitting on a low bushy branch, a red-breasted bird. Hurrah for this year's first sighting, “Hi Robin, welcome back!” 

I moved along to feisty little Mimico Creek. Now crowded by development and buttressed by ugly gabions, it winds through Toronto’s west end heading for Lake Ontario. Careless garbage mars its banks, and yet it offers the luscious sound of water tumbling over stones, as mallard ducks ride the current. How can it never, ever, ever, ever  stop flowing? This constancy always seems like an impossible miracle and reminds me of when I was intrigued in elementary school by the "precipitation cycle".

Aha! I almost swooned when I saw some green shoots in a  sunny garden warmed up early by a stone wall’s backdrop. No blooms yet, but I recognized the first new leaves of tulip, iris and hyacinth. Three cheers!

The crisp quietness was interrupted by a vehement “CAW” from a king of the world on a high, bare branch, no reticence for him. Shout it out - Hallelujah!

Outside the daycare, toddlers in parkas pushed plastic lawnmowers across their snow-free asphalt play yard. Like sprouting bulbs those miniature bodies were growing toward adulthood. 

Suddenly, from out of a driveway rushed two squirrels, barrelling right toward me on the road. I froze in panic; which way should I move? Just in time, they noticed me, slammed on their brakes and pulled sharp right turns with parallel synchronicity. I laughed as they dashed away in their spring fever.