Winter or Spring?

Spring Is Coming

"Spring Will Come Again" by Beth Coll Anderson

I’m sitting here in the sun room of my house, which is filled with light, the shadow reflections of the plants in the room dancing across the floor. There is a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the table, and the vibrant colors and fresh scent invigorate me. Outside I hear the birds chirping a joyful spring song. The sky is a crystal blue, softened by sparse white clouds taking their sweet time in their journey across the expanse. While the temperature is cold and there is the slightest white dusting of snow on the ground, it’s a day that sings of Spring. A day that says: “It’s almost here.”

Meanwhile, over in New York City my friends and colleagues are getting walloped with snow. And sleet. And thunder, apparently. “Slushies from the Sky,” one called it. A day that has Winter doing its best to say “Oh, no you don’t, Spring. Not yet. Not just yet.”

This yearly battle between Winter and Spring fascinates me, and has been magnified this year by 70 degree days followed by 30 degree days. A literal tug of war. Winter bellows, but Spring, in its relentless march, ultimately wins.  

Spring wins.

Which of course has me thinking of the other winters that bellow.

Because we all experience winters that bellow, don’t we? I mean, that bellow.   Situations that work to snatch spring away from us. Situations that make us feel that we will never thaw out again. Situations that color us gray and cloudy. These winters can make us start to feel bleak. Hopeless.

But Spring always comes after Winter.  

Pablo Neruda said “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” 

When we’re in the midst of a winter it would do us well to remember that there is a spring on the other side. Warm and inviting and filled with light. Sometimes those springs feel like they take forever to arrive, I know. But they do eventually.

And with them we are offered the space to warm up from the long winter we just made it through, the time to thaw.  

So if you've got a winter bellowing but you can just faintly start to hear the whispers of spring? Remember, that spring whisper is going to get louder and louder until it's all you can hear. Until all traces of winter have faded away.  And if you head into a new winter with no signs of spring on the horizon? Remember the other springs you've experienced and trust that another one is on its way to you. 

Do you have a Winter bellowing? How can you hold out for Spring today?

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“Winter or Spring?”, The Leadership Program, 2017