Winter: defeated

Witness this photo taken yesterday, the final gasp of a dying season. It’s the pathetic remnant of when driving through Angeltown was akin to driving through a labyrinth:

At the same time, Springtime rallied itself to the cause, struggling to be rid of the cold white monster forever:

The first crocus in my garden cautiously reared its head yesterday.

Today, of course, they’re going nuts.

It’s a far cry from our worst year in Angeltown, winter 2001/2002, when it snowed three feet on Christmas day and then snowed again every three days until mid-April. We went to the cemetery on Christmas morning before church, turned on the lights on Emily’s graveside Christmas tree, and then afterward I didn’t see that tree again until March. By the end of April, I was so stir-crazy from all the ice and snow that I grabbed an icebreaker tool and went outside and just started hacking at the four inches of solid ice beneath our mailbox. I needed to strike back at winter and hurt it just as badly as it was hurting me. Every time a loaf-of-bread-sized block of ice came loose, I’d kick it out into the street and feel a vindictive warmth.

This year is very different, although we’ve had just as much snowfall. That last little lump of snow is now melted into the matted leftover grass from last Fall. Angeltown is filthy with the silt and sand kicked up by endless snowplows, but that won’t last beyond the next rainfall. The grass will green up again. The crocuses are up. The birds are singing. Yesterday, I heard peeper frogs. 

Winter: defeated

Angeltown: warm and new again

Springtime: cheerfully welcomed