Sprung

Half asleep and bleary-eyed, I looked out the bathroom window this morning. Raindrops hovered on winter-silvered branches like strings of jewels glinting in the watery sunlight. Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I looked again when I passed the window on the way back to my warm bed. There were a few raindrops hanging from branch tips, but the rest were buds, green, yellow and pink buds. Somewhere between winter's cold and this morning there had been just enough warmth and sun in the lengthening days to stir the sap and push out onto the thin dead branches.

There was supposed to be snow today higher up in the mountains and freezing temperatures and white-out conditions but here in the sheltered valley in the mountains shadow it rained and brought the first blush of spring. The bare skeletal arms of the forsythia next door are bursting with green-yellow flowers and buds. They almost seem to bloom and blossom before my eyes, a sure sign of spring. No wonder I've felt so restless the past few days.

Considering all that has happened in the past weeks, I chalked up the restlessness to a bit of cabin fever and a need to fit myself back into the comfortable niches and hollows of my life. It has escaped me. I can't seem to settle down long enough to find the familiar grooves, always fretting and chafing at responsibilities and expectations and schedules, wanting to be away from the narrow confines of my office and out somewhere. There have been a few warm days teasing me through the open windows. Night creeps closer and the wind bites with icy teeth. I close the windows and force myself back into the chair, fingers to the keyboard, ear buds demanding my undivided attention, and so back to work.

The cold rain dripping from the eaves and shushing from the tires of passing traffic whispers promises of new life and spring and the changes it brings, a blank slate begging to be used. Not even Ostara's ritual stirred me as much as the buds spangling branches that were winter killed and bare just yesterday.

There will be time for schedules and responsibilities and duties; they are constant companions, but now is the time to breathe the warming air, enjoy the green and yellow and blue and red and lilac and soft pastels and inhale the glorious scent of returning life. When winter is reluctant to loose its icy hold, gentle spring returns and coaxes life back into the bleak landscape with its soft warm breath.

The wheel turns and season gives way to season. Spring has sprung.