Beginnings

Nothing is more thrilling than the beginning. 

That line, "You had me at..." usually refers to the opening lines with which an approach was made.

If we remember nothing more of a story, we remember the beginning:
"Mother died today. Or, perhaps yesterday."  

Now, add to the pantheon of great opening lines the opening of Red Tails in Love:
"If it is possible to fall in love with a thing, I believe I fell in love with the Bird Register the day I first opened it. The emotions were familiar: the same feeling of excitement, of undeserved luck, the mildly deluded sensation that a new kind of happiness was just around the corner, the certainty that life was about to divide forever into a before and after."

The Boathouse, Central Park

What Marie Winn is talking about in this gorgeous opening is, of course, not just falling in love with a book housed in the Boat House of Central Park, New York, she is talking about falling in love with Central Park and its creatures. But she is talking about more: She is talking about the very experience of "falling in love." 

Okay, Spring, "love," everybody knows about all that. But, actually, I don't think so. I don't think everyone has fallen in love. I would bet it's not all that common, Cole Porter notwithstanding.

Females, in particular are wary. All those birds on the nature shows, looking at those fantastic male displays and shrugging them off. Doesn't just apply to birds.

Central Park, though. I get that. And that is a place even I can believe love blooms.

Bethesda Fountain, Central Park

My favorite spot, among many favorites, was the Bethesda fountain.  I had grown up in a place called Bethesda, so when I heard there was a Bethesda fountain, I walked right there. The place was mobbed with happy people.  Bethesda, in the Bible, was a place of healing waters, and that seemed true in Central Park.

Ah, Spring. Even the old, the jaded, turn eyes skyward and against their better judgment, feel dry roots stirring with Spring rain, as Eliot would say. 
Maybe just one more renewal.
 Who knows how many more chances we will ever have?