This is a post I’ve been waiting three months to write: today marks the last day of winter. Tomorrow the calendar clicks forward to spring, and while it likely won’t feel like it for a while (March is tricky that way, and April too) technically the winter will be over, and that buoys the spirits immeasurably.
On the southern side of the house, where the sun has melted all the winter, a few pinecones have been revealed on the lawn beneath the Eastern pine. I planted it only a few years ago, and already it’s twice my height. The last few seasons it has been producing pinecones, which dangle high in its upper boughs like rustic ornaments on a Christmas tree. There, in the whorls of a pinecone, is the past and future encompassed in one spectacular package of nature, the only producer of perfection in this wonderful world.
Pinecones personify the start of fall, and in a full-circle moment they also come into play at the end of winter. Soon, the grass will turn green, the debris will be raked up, and the stark canvass of spring will be reborn. The expanse of promise…
