Otherwise Known as Freckle Face...

These are the days when my Daddy starts to remember my age old nickname...

When the snow has melted away and the grass starts turning green once again, and everything seems to revel and bloom in the warm sunshine, I start to bloom, too. Not in the typical sense, mind you, but more freckles make their appearance across my face and the ones that had already been there, grow stronger.

I can't remember a time when my Daddy hasn't called me "freckle face". When I was a little girl, I used to love that moment when he would first notice my new freckles; when he would reach out one finger and trace the path they made across my face. With my hands clasped tightly behind my back, I would lean close and beam up at him, hoping he would notice the freckles that tripped lightly across my nose and were sprinkled across my cheeks like cinnamon, without my saying anything. "There's my freckle face," he would finally say. "You look just like your Mother." It was one of my proudest moments, and I would sigh in blissful content. *smile*

It's almost a rite of spring to me. Sun, Spring, Warmth, equals...freckles! I always hurry with my work on the first nice day, just so I can rush outside and feel the warm sun against my face once more. In my eagerness, I always seem to get a bit scorched...but I really don't mind. It's worth it, just for those few blissful hours.

When I was little I used to think that freckles were some fun, magical, sort of thing...like one of those t.v. commercials that profess that you can make a quick and delicious dinner if you will just add water to their product...only with freckles you just add sun! I would rush in from outdoors after a few hours, to see if the sun "worked". And sure enough, it always had. There's still some of that wonderment in me...I'm still clinging to the thought, silly or not, that freckles are just plain, honest to goodness, no-doubt-about-it, magical.

For quite awhile I loved my freckles, then I hated them, then I loved them again. I think I went back and forth between those two thoughts, many, many times growing up. But I really do love them, and I'm going to keep on.

So...once more Spring has come. And once more I ran outside and lay in our hammock just to feel the glorious warmth on my face. My small sister begs me to come and play with her, but as pull her down beside me to feel Spring, too, I laughingly tell her, "Not now, I'm getting my "freckle soak".