When spring finds me
Frozen, still I wait
Green shoots reach toward the light
Spring remembers me.
I’m feeling overwhelmed. The realization that I tend to freeze in moments like this isn’t new. But I rediscover it, again and again, throughout my life.
Each time, this insight helps me. It falls like a small truth into the vast, unfamiliar puzzle I seem to be building with every chapter of my life.
When I freeze, I usually know I want to do something with the overwhelm. But even thinking about what that something might be… is overwhelming in itself. And so, in many seasons, I stay stuck..frustrated by the weight of feeling too much and not knowing what to do about it.
But just like the seasons outside, spring begins to quietly peek through. Tiny bulbs of green emerge from below the surface, reaching, slowly but surely, toward heaven.
And then, suddenly: flowers bloom, bees hum, butterflies flutter, birds sing new songs, and somewhere nearby, small animals are born.
So it is with me.
I want to create. But I haven’t yet learned how to do that when I’m in winter. Winter always seems too long. At first, the rest is welcome. I’m grateful for the hush it brings: I even enjoy making our home cozy.
But when my mind stays in winter, even as the world outside keeps moving, that’s when it hurts. I see others living, and I don’t know how to follow.
I think a lot about what I’d love to do. I try to figure it out. But nothing moves through my hands.
And then, without warning, I write a little. I draw a little.
Before I know it, I’m back in spring; smelling flowers, sharing the quiet fruit of rest.