The first signs of spring are a wonderful thing to see after going through months of howling winds, deep snow drifts, and cars skidding around black ice. Winter is exhausting unless you truly enjoy the layering of clothes, the loss of feeling in your earlobes and fingertips, and the constant leaking from your eyes and nose.
Winter is also the time when many people try to figure out how to change their lives for the better. There are resolutions of yoga (to lose the winter padding that has begun to show), to call home more often, to cook healthy stir-fry and drink kale smoothies, to study more… The list goes on.
What are we doing to congratulate ourselves for what has already happened? We, apparently, have gone through the worst of it, and perhaps this is true, but I’m also pretty sure that COVID-19 is leaving a big, steamy pile of crap in our history books. I can picture people in the future laughing their heads off at all our meagre attempts to squash this thing. Whispers of “I can’t believe it took them that long!” will hopefully not be the words said when COVID-19 is finally more of an afterthought than an everyday acceptance.
But living in the here and now, what comforts me personally is that we do still live in a pretty profound place. We can voice our opinions and wear what we want. We have many privileges and opportunities. We have clean water to drink. The snow has ceased to fall, and I’m noticing an abundance of excited snowdrops peeking out of the grass.
Spring is on its way, perhaps a tiny bit earlier than last year, but maybe that’s because it has some wonderful news to deliver. We may be getting close to a new beginning.