Sometimes the promise of spring’s arrival is enough . . . (unknown)
Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring. (Pulitzer)
Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush. (Larson)
When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems, except where to be happiest. (Hemingway)
The weather has taken one of those wacky swings, and the birds are whispering secrets about spring. The sunshine streaming through my windows has a decidedly different angle as the sun seemingly speeds northward along the mountain, picking up speed every day (and exposing astonishing quantities of winter cobwebs and dust-bunnies heretofore unseen). And the spring-thaw-mud oozes almost up to the top of my clogs in the pasture. Yay! I’m ignoring a forecast that says it’s gonna turn colder again — right now I can sit out in the sun and soak it up and in.
While doing an internship year in New Orleans, I can remember the moment of falling in love with that city was sitting on a patio in February, and smelling the exquisite sweetness of the sweet olive trees. Blooming flowers in February!
Now I treasure each hint of “green” I see in the fields, and each tiny blade of a crocus emerging. And I think of the masses of wild violets that will bloom down by the creek in a couple of months. In July I will be swatting at pesky insects and wondering why I planted so many tomatoes, but now it’s all pleasure and hope.
I am speaking of the concrete reality of my delight in some lovely weather, but I am also speaking of life. And hope. And choices about how we are with ourselves and each other, and with the world . . . Choices that we can make that are life-giving . . .
So I will treasure this intimation of spring, and let it soak into my soul. In this moment, like the birds, I feel like whispering about possibilities and new beginnings.