Winter on its way to spring

Yesterday was one of those February mental-health days. Every now and then, if you've been good, if you've stayed devoted to winter, you catch a spectacular break. You wake up one morning to beaming sunlight and twittering. From bed you can lay there and listen to the icicles drip. Making coffee, you're smiling, lost in deep contemplation of crocuses, or sandal wearing, or porch sitting. Yesterday was like that.

I smiled a lot. I did lots of thinking, and a fair bit of doing, as well. I walked around. I surveyed our yard, our compost heap, our flower beds, and envisioned things to come. I even remembered the tulips. It's a good time, spring. We all turn back to the land in our own little ways: we pay attention to what we hear and what we smell when we step outside, we take more walks, we let our toes run loose. I turn back to the land each spring with a downright religious zeal, ready to fall on my knees and worship the rich, brown dirt.

I'll let you envision that one for a moment.

Anyway. It was altogether fitting that yesterday also involved tea, neighbors, and a pile of seed catalogs. Our little community garden has been given the go-ahead for a second season, and I'm grateful. Before last spring, my neighbors Jen and Corrine were just the people who lived next door. Since then, we've planted together. We've weeded together. We've canned together. We've shared holidays, eaten brunch, and played board games on snowy afternoons together. We're friends now, all because of a common desire to grow a garden. It was lovely to spend the evening sipping tea and paging through those glossy, super-model shots of Celebrity tomatoes and Red Ace beets. The anticipation and the planning for spring are almost as good as the real thing.

It'll be here soon, and I can't wait to get started.