This morning I look in the mirror as I brush my hair. It has grown long these past three years. I twist it high on my head. It looks odd to me, this ballerina bun I haven’t worn since high school. The unframed face, the knot of hair visible only when I turn my head.

At the grocery store, I buy yogurt, granola bars, and a small pot of daffodils.

At home, I drink Irish breakfast tea and read last Sunday’s New York Times.

The moss of the daffodils is still moist. Four or five of the flowers are in full bloom. Half a dozen are still tight buds.

One flower is just opening.

Earlier this week, as I was driving son the younger to school, I passed a bank of Texas blue bonnets. Sure sign of early spring. Their bright blue the color of the sky in deep June.

I spent that day at the hospital, working with breast cancer patients on “self-portraits,” humorous images made up of arms, eyes, and lips cut from magazine ads. Bodies are diet coke cans, hand lotion bottles, a Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie. One woman uses a squash cut length-wise and pastes on its end so the seeds cluster in the “belly.” A sign of fertile creativity, I tell her.

At the end of the day, one of my small dancers hands me a fistful of wildflowers. Tiny white trumpets with stems like chives. Their green fades into the color of mushrooms where they have been separated from the earth.

At home, I fill a vase salvaged from an abandoned house. Kitschy gold, with a bulbous bottom and an opening so slender my few flowers just barely fit. I place it in my bedroom.

Th day has both begun and ended with flowers. Wildflowers. Fragile, yet resilient. Returning, unbidden, year after year.

This week a guest brought ice cream to share. “Get out the bowls from the dining room,” said husband, his pleasure in using them evident.

We bought the bowls in Japan. They are small – just the right size for my fist to fit snugly. The exterior is a milky white, a white with a touch of gray, like the color of a frozen pond.

Each interior is a different pattern in blue and white. The rim of each is a chocolate brown, a lighter version of the syrup we pour over our coffee ice cream.

In the dining room, a branch of blooming forsythia is a cheerful yellow against the maroon of the velvet drapes.

This morning the warming air hangs on the horizon, softening the view.

I walked by a house being remodeled. I walked into the driveway, into the backyard, hoping to peer into windows. But every window was covered from the inside with brown paper. They’re painting inside, I tell myself.

I look at the new portico, meant, most likely, for wisteria. I look at the new covered deck, meant for drinks and shade. I look at the siding, newly primed and waiting for paint.

I cannot see inside to where, most likely, there is new wood and granite. I cannot see the changes, but I know the builder, know the quality of his work, the excellence of his taste.

And for now, that must be enough.

The chill has returned. I put on my “tete d’artiste” beret and wound my scarf around my neck. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I set off this morning at a brisk pace.

Halfway down my usual path, I noticed an unusual sight: one of the live oaks had been decorated with long strands of red and green beads. Looking more closely, I saw that each strand had a small mirrored disco ball dangling from one end.

On the other side of the driveway, candy canes surrounded a small plastic Santa holding his belly.

Back home, I took my favorite Japanese bowl out of the drainboard, the pink one with a fat cat and tail on its sides, and prepared to pour tea. It wasn’t until I went to lift to the bowl to my lips that I noticed I had serendipitously placed it so that the kitty on the inside of the bowl faced me, its eyes closed in pleasure, a small bell around its neck.

I too closed my eyes while sipping.