If you live in New England, as I do, or live in any other northern clime, you know the winter months can have an insidious hold on you. 

It’s cold. It’s dark. There’s snow to shovel. Your bones ache. And you don’t really know the toll winter has taken until it warms up.

Then, all of a sudden, it’s like something heavy has been lifted. Your mood is better. Your attitude is better. Your health is better! 

And when I say all of a sudden, I mean it. 

After I saw these crocuses popping out of the ground, with their glorious pinks and purples and whites, after weeks and weeks of seeing nothing but dull gray and dirty brown, it came as a shock. 

And, perhaps, a metaphor, too.

I mean, I don’t mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but hope is sometimes a question of where you’re standing. If you’re standing on the front-end of winter, bracing yourself for its doldrums, hope can feel out of reach.

But if you’re standing on the back-end of winter, with the expectation of spring showers and longer hours of sunlight, well, it feels in hand.

I don’t have more to say, except that I wanted to share this photo. If you have photos of your own, of life — and hope! — trying to spring back, send them to me! Just attach them to an email message in reply to this one. Or you can find me on Bluesky @editorialboard.bsky.social.

If I get enough, I’ll put together an album to share with everyone.

Happy Sunday! JS

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