perceiving spring

I keep telling myself it is spring, but winter is putting up a terrific fight. It was sunny and warm enough on Saturday that I wore a skirt and short sleeves to the local farmer’s market. This morning, it was chilly glove-wearing weather. The thermometer told an ungenerous truth: 31 degrees (about -0.5 C). The hills around my home were frosted white, the snow level creeping down to elevations too close for comfort. Even still, tree branches are bursting green with lush infant leaves and even the most delicate blossoms are persisting in defiance of the icy temperatures.

I think it is much the same with me. It spite of all indications that it is spring, it feels as though I’ve been sitting through a kind of winter, one that has cast itself over the whole of my interior landscape. The soil is hard and frozen and the air still and cold. Tree branches are all but bare and even if they had any green life to display, there would be no rush of bird’s wings to stir them to motion. I stay inside wrapped a thick knit sweater that hugs my neck. I wrap my stiff fingers around a steaming mug of tea, drawing its fragrant steam in deeply through my nostrils. I watch the motionless landscape in silence.

But it should be spring: the trip to Florida. The body post. The responses. The writer’s conference. The photo shoot.

So why does a chill still hang in the air around me? Why does it seem as though I’m shrouded in winter?

The truth is, I don’t know.

But I do know that it is spring. I can’t describe how, but I know that there is a torrent of activity in the depths of things: beneath the soil, flurries of life in tree trunks and branches, imperceptible from the outside. Mitochondria are hectic with activity, seeds are dying, casting off their shells and becoming something else. Something alive.

It only appears to be still. Do not be mistaken: it is spring.

spring photo by kirsten.michelle