Spring Forth

We're halfway between winter and spring. We celebrated Imbolc/The Disting at our house on February first with four of our friends. The Groundhog saw his shadow on February 2nd. The sun peeked out for a minute earlier today (February 5th), while most of the northeast slides along on ice and snow. I you look outside, though, you can see new green at the end of the wintergrass. It's not fooling anyone. Spring is not sneaky enough to escape us. Some have even sighted robins already.

We crossed three borders into new year. One in the fall, Pagan New Year, at what others call the season of Halloween Then, Calendar new year when 2014 arrived. We swept 2013 out the back door, eager to turn the page. But the new page was spoiled before day-clear, with 300,000 people in our state poisoned by the coal company and chemicals used to clean the snow. Leaked into Elk River while the guilty, both government and business slinked away into hiding. Freedom Industries filed bankruptcy and borrowed money to "clean up" and hide the evidence and thereby escape accountability.

So we looked for Chinese new year, hoping the horse would clear away the slithering snake. We just keep needing something new.

Spring is already breathing under the snow. The earth keeps doing her part. I have no doubt there'll be flowers and I have no doubt summer will come and fall soon after. I forget now what I'm waiting for. I'm sixty and maybe not waiting anymore. All the things I thought I wanted belong to some other time. Now, I'll take the days as they come and do the best in them that I can do. I'll plant and tend and pay attention.It's got to be enough.