Spring in the Air

Though you wouldn’t know it from my last few posts, there was a long stretch of gray February between a certain sparkly-blue Sunday and the recent sun-and-shadow games. But we’ve now been basking in almost two straight weeks of glorious sunshine. Spring is very much in the air.

The snow is melting fast, and my thoughts seem to be thawing, too. I've spent a lot of time inside my head over the past six weeks or so. That's standard for winter, but even more it's the reality of living alone, working at home, in a new place where I haven't yet forged deep connections and where faraway friends are just that - faraway and busy with lives that don't intersect with mine unless we both make an effort.

Truly, it’s good for me to face the bleak skies and blustering winds within, to remember that all is not resolved even if I have chosen a home place and settled in with a mortgage and a long-term commitment to my current arrangements.

I have a complicated relationship with spring. Not just because I'm allergic to it (and that trend, inexplicably and thankfully, seems to have reversed in the past few years). Spring brings a very different kind of work and energy, and while I love feeling the first warm breath of the new season, I often don’t feel quite ready. The inner work of winter's hibernation is important, and this year especially it feels unfinished. But soon there will be seeds to start and a lawn to rake and garden beds to prepare and windows to wash and a patio to put in. It'll be all too easy to fling open the door and clear out of my head and ignore the deeper questions until January rolls around again.

As a winter’s worth of ice breaks up inside me and begins to move downstream, I need to find a way to translate this momentum into forward progress on the outside. How, I’m not sure, but I’m putting it down on the page in hopes that it makes my intentions a little more tangible.