Limping along slowly, winter is reluctant to move or budge much, but I sense the gradual shift into rising temperatures. Tomorrow we may break into the 40’s, the first of such tropics since last year. Even more telling, our overwintering fig tree in the garage has started to put forth its first tight buds of green – always earlier than is comfortable, with so much winter yet to come – but even if/when that first flush gets pushed back, the signs of life, of spring, are impossible to ignore. In the branches of the juniper out front, the cradled snow begins its mid-day melting.
It will freeze again come night, and colder temperatures, but the glistening sparkle of afternoon respite hints at warmer stretches. We want so badly for spring to arrive. Andy and I stare out the windows, willing the snow to go, willing the winter to rush away. We talk of times when family and friends might gather again, when the weather is nicer, when the world is safer. We live in the space of the future, as much as mindfulness matters, because it feels good to look forward again.
