It has been a long hard winter of a long hard year.

We are exhausted, terrified, impoverished in wallet and will.

We have been trying so hard for so long to make it all make sense (at this point, to make anything make sense). And in the Northeast, the winter was cold and gray and deep.

So when we finally had a glimpse of warmth, we were thrilled; we bared our delighted skin to the sun even as we knew it wouldn’t last.

And sure, we had more snow, and I’m sure we’ll get another few good freezes, but spring has made its call.

Up here at 1500 feet, the grass is barely greening; the trees still look bare from a distance but that haze of color is coming fast. The hop hornbeam outside my window has yellow-green buds and the red maples are throwing their tiny blossoms like confetti.

Yesterday in the woods we saw our barred owl; he had flown silently from one tree to another and sat maybe forty feet away watching us as we maneuvered among the hemlocks for a better look. We also saw our first red newt of the year (who was so astonished to see Len looming over him that he lost his grip on his stone and fell six inches to the stream bed below, twisting to catch himself and then rushing into a tiny mossy cave). And we celebrated the return of the pepperroot, early blue cohosh, trilliums, tiarella, starflower, trout lilies, and many other friends.

It came out of nowhere, like it always does, and in just a few days we went from late winter to full spring. The Buddhists say to not get attached to things, for in attachment lies our suffering. Spring reminds me of that every year: if I attach to an image of what it should be, I am disappointed (especially in Ithaca, tbh). If I attach to the chronic winterness of it all, I am depressed. The best I can do is watch and listen and gasp and smile.