Sun In My Eyes

Although all the sun and sky suggested otherwise, there was nothing balmy about my walk this morning. The wind on my exposed forehead was like a hammer blow to my brain -- it shocked me awake, it brought tears to my eyes, it made my cheeks bloom like peonies, it made my nose run. But the return trip, with the wind at my back, was perfection.

Clouds sailed the blue sea-sky and made my day appear springlike. As I walked I recalled similar days in my memory of icy winds and moments spent tethered to a kite string, and the thought had hardly formed in my head before I saw one in a tree. Sponge Bob, upside-down, smiling at the sun.

I walk this route almost every day and don't recall ever seeing it before. Had it been there since spring, hiding in the leaves? Or did someone look outside today and think, like I did, that everything looks and smells like kite-flying weather?