in that span of nearly an hour i saw a fleshy new leaf separate itself from the rest of the bud and uncurl a little at its fuzz-covered tip. the veins in the leaf were stringy and white and the edges of the leaf were the color of the bloodshot in my eyes. it was a bizarre color to see on a leaf in springtime, one that is usually reserved for fall.

it rained last night and things are coming to life... and for once i am noticing it rather than purposely ignoring it. it seems like this time my eyes are open a little wider. i refuse to explain this because i enjoy how this feels in my head and i won't like how i cannot do it satisfactory justice within the confines of my limited vocabulary.

but i notice things. sometimes.

the human eye is bicameral. we can shift our focus and blurr out unneeded or undesired background filler. sometimes we do it involuntarily.

but sometimes, when you are seeing so much all at once, it's more satisfying to find something that can regulate your bicameral eyes and focus your focus on something tiny and perfect.

(i know that i am using metaphor and that i promised myself earlier today that i was swearing off metaphors for a period of a day or so. i am disappointed in my failure to not uphold my resolution, but i can lie and say that this whole situation is supposed to be meant as literal...)

so i spied this newly-formed bud reveling in the midmorning sunshine and beginning to stretch in a vaguely feline manner at the warmth and overnight dampness. i brough out my camera and opened the f-stop as wide as it would go. in a razor-thin depth of field there's such an acute focus on exactly what i wanted to capture. and i grappled with the shutter speed. what do you do when your meter says 1/500 and you want to set it for at least a month? undecided, i just stared through the viewfinder and watched as the very tip of the tiny precious leaf licked forward and peeled away a layer of the bud's coccoon.

i never took a picture.

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i think the punchline to this story is the fact that the weather predicts a messy slushy rainy snowy day for tomorrow, and the bud will surely die in the below-freezing overnight temperatures. at this moment, however, i'm completely ignoring that fact.