For many folks, today is just a day where things are confused because we have only 23 hours to complete our tasks, but for me it is a day of celebration, and next to the Winter Solstice where the days become increasingly longer, it is my favorite day. I am a creature of the light, and just like the trees, the flowers and the earth, in order to bloom, I need light. My hardest days are those in the fall during which winter creeps closer and the darkness starts to take over. I don’t even mind the cold as much as the dark. After about a week of weather and darkness that begs for hibernating and snuggling, I am done. I NEED to celebrate sunlight.
Today is glorious. Windy, sunny but yet still crisp enough to remind me that this is just the beginning of spring. All week, when it wasn’t raining, I walked through my neighborhood taking pictures of the newly opened flowers, the budding trees, and listened to the birds emerging from wherever they hide their music during the dreary days of winter. I am energized and optimistic, and able to breathe fully again knowing the worst of the dark winter is behind me and even if it snows, spring will prevail.
From the time I was little girl growing up in New England, I knew that I needed to head south. The dark, long, cold days that began at the start of each school year were torture. I couldn’t wait for the thaw and the switch to daylight savings to allow myself to relax and breathe and move again. My wish came true when I was twenty-four and I had an opportunity to move to Texas for a year. I have never looked back.
Despite prolonged stretches of 100 plus degree weather, I loved the bright open skies and the warmth of the weather. True that there were sporadic ice storms, cold weather and a season they called winter, but it didn’t matter because it was short, and I could muster through it. My family never really understood why I loved living there so much, but it was the climate, not the politics or the history that spoke to my soul.
Nine years later when I met the love of my life in Dallas, he asked me if I would move to Virginia with him. Still the South, but a hard decision because I had really blossomed in the Southwest. Now more that thirty-six years later, I can acknowledge that it was worth it. Not only because of our Virginian life together, but because the flowers here begin to bloom in late February, and there is the appearance of life among the winter-looking trees around that same time.
Today as I walked along the windy sidewalk with the buds and blossoms starting to appear, I promised myself that I would buy a bouquet of daffodils, pussy willows and irises to celebrate the newer, longer and brighter days. Welcome spring!!
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