Spring just might come

We spend the whole damn winter longing for spring. Counting the hours. Watching the damn groundhog.

But our longing doesn’t mitigate the fact that at some level we don’t believe it will come. That the first day it’s warm in a timely manner, we’re surprised. (In a timely manner because, sure, if it’s February 10, we are surprised by sixty degree weather, but on March 17, we shouldn’t be.) At some point, we—at least I—settle into a deep fatalism about winter; it’s here, it will always be here, it has always been here, where’s my scarf and coat?

Yet spring comes.

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together
You stopped and pointed, and you said, “That’s a crocus”
And I said, “What’s a crocus?,” and you said, “It’s a flower”
I tried to remember, but I said, “What’s a flower?”
You said, “I still love you.”

–Dar Williams, “February”

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