In like a lion

March arrived in signature style, with a windstorm that dented the grill and robbed us of much of our sand pit.

February was taken up this year in a very exciting, week-long field trip, followed shortly by a week of standardized testing.  I'd say I was pretty successful in warding off the February blues.

But now it's March.  

And March isn't any better than February.

The fell seasonal spirit is sweeping through even our Sunday school halls, where small children are behaving like wild beasts, turning on their loving teachers with bared teeth and howling protests to circle time.

My own kids haven't been outside for six months.

And it's so fricking cold.  And brown.  And dull.  And windy.  And cold.  And the 10-day forecast stretches out with little snowflakes and "snow/rain mix" and 40 degrees, with no change in sight.

It makes me ache for summer that doesn't end.

A time with no more cold, no more darkness, no more drear.  

When we don't feel the desperation of summer days slipping out of grasp.  

When the toil ends and the garden blooms eternal.  

I walked to the one place in town with a blooming daffodil.

If time ever seems to stand still, it's in late winter.  The trees have been brown so long I hardly remember what green looks like.  Everything is dry and twiggy and lifeless.  It doesn't look like it will ever change.  Each day is as cold as the one before.

But the plants know something I don't know.  Their annual unspoken faith swells in quiet buds: delicate little flowers that will require light and warmth to survive--and they choose this most barren of depressing months to emerge, calmly planning to be in place to greet the coming, though as-yet-unseen spring.