Green With Envy

I was watching a nature show on BritBox last week called "Winter Watch." The hosts spent two weeks traveling all over the U.K. showing stories of how the natural world and it's creatures survive the winter in their fair land. As beautiful and interesting as it all was, what hit me the hardest was hearing that they already have snowdrops, those first brave shoots of spring, coming up all over the place. Some areas have even been seeing them come up since the end of January. To say that I was green with envy was an understatement: I was bright, bold, green!

Back when I had my big garden in the little town up north from where I live now, watching for the snowdrops was what kept me going through winters that I was sure would never end. Day after day, well into March, I would check out the bed where I had planted them and watch for those first tiny green shoots, and then for the delicate little white flowers struggling to raise their heads and face the sun. They were so very symbolic of how we all felt waiting for the last of the snow to melt and the buds to return to the trees. We all needed something to hold on to in order to make it to spring.

We humans are very much like our gardens. Sometimes it seems as if spring will never come, the sun will never shine again, and out best growing days are behind us. It feels as if it takes longer and longer for us to spring back and put out those tender, tentative new shoots again, afraid that it's too late and we're too old to take root again. It is precisely for that reason that we have to find that one thing to hold on to, that gets us through until our attempts at starting over, whether it be a new life or even just a new day, start to send up shoots. It could be our faith, our family, or, as in my case, a few small pots on a windowsill or table-top that, somehow, find a way to start again in the spring. Whatever it is, believe in it, have faith in it, and feed it with all the love and positive energy you can muster. One fine spring morning, those first tender shoots will poke their little heads up through the earth, and a new day will begin. Count on it.

And so it is.