In Like a Lamb

Last year early March looked like this:

Today I took a picture of these snowdrops in the front yard:

If winter is not a time of suffering, can you really appreciate spring?

I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to live in a place like Florida or Southern California and step out the door on the first beautiful spring-like day.

Would it feel the same, or as sweet, as it would to someone who had endured a Maine winter?

Do you have to experience the pain and brutality of a fierce, endless winter, to truly appreciate the sweetness of the first balmy day in March?

I am too lazy to go and look up our actual snowfall amount this winter, but I only used the shovel once and it was to move some slush off the steps. The kids have had no snow days. The ground never froze hard, so nothing is heaving. There are no lingering piles of dirty snow and I’ll bet there is a big surplus of salt and cinders sitting in every municipal stockyard in the county.

There were plenty of sunny days this winter, too. Everyone is totally baffled. And everyone still harbors some fear that a rogue storm could still blow in and bury the tulip foliage that is starting to spike up, and sadden the robins.  Could happen.

But it was still so sweet to walk around today in a light jacket and sunglasses. I was not gulping this spring day the way a person dying of thirst gulps water. Instead, I sipped it, the way a connoisseur sips the first taste of a new wine. I savored the softness of the snowdrops, their delicate peaty bouquet. I let the new slant of spring light warm, and linger on my face. I felt my muscles relax in the sleeves of my coat.

It felt perfectly lovely to savor the first day of a new season for a change, rather than gorge on it like someone starving.