Pining for Spring

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am through with winter.  I am ready to be released from this frigid grip, but as I gaze out my office window, I see overcast skies, a snow-blanketed expanse of grass, and daggers of ice hanging ominously from the eaves. I desperately need blue skies and sunshine.

            I know people from the northern areas of our continent would call me a wimp.  Well, so be it. Winter misery is exactly why I do not live any further north than Oklahoma.  Other winter-loving friends will expound on the beauty of the snow and ice.  Just send me a picture.  I will enjoy winter’s glories vicariously.

            I have taken to buying little pieces of spring to tide me over until the real thing arrives.  I purchased a wall calendar with illustrations of vintage seed catalogs.  The month of February’s picture of pansies can almost make me forget that my own pansies lie encased in ice on my front porch.  I also bought a bouquet of yellow tulips recently. They sat cheerily on my kitchen table as the snow and ice turned my back patio into a skating rink.  Then desperate optimist that I am, I bought a rose bush.  Yes, a rose bush.  For some unknown reason, one of the local stores had them on sale, so I bought one and carried it home in the freezing fog.  It sits forlornly in my front hall waiting to be transplanted into warm earth.

            Spring will come eventually.  As always in Oklahoma, there will be several false starts, but the season will change, and the earth and my spirits will renew.