It seems as though every Easter Sunday has been bright and crispy clear. Although we had a heavy rain storm yesterday, the sun faithfully shone through the window this morning as my cats soaked in the warm rays while watching chirping sparrows tease them on the fire escape rail. The painful puddles of yesterday dried up, and the bright blue sky smiled at me with hope.

"You must look forward," she said.

So in this spirit, I planted yellow and orange snapdragons to remind me how I can turn bitterness into beauty if I choose to.   

I am reminded of my neighbors' seder last year, where I had the privilege of experiencing bitter parsley dipped in salt and sweet charoset smothered on matzo for the very first time.

The bitterness and sweetness of life is a universal theme. Every spring can be a renaissance of what we want most in our lives. If I may, I'd like to leave with you with Robert Frost's A Prayer In Spring:

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

Marisol Tirelli Rivera