Forced Spring

Howling winds push the snow around leaving it in wavy heaps blocking the front door. This afternoon I had to force my way out. 

With spring just weeks away, there seems to be no end in sight for this wintery weather. We woke to a weightless blanket of snow and another storm is forecasted for tomorrow night. The facts of living in the northeast. This is reminiscent of winters of my childhood. After dinner, heads were strategically bowed together all those years ago, brainstorming the management of snow storage as the piles grew and grew encroaching on the neighbors. 

No matter how often we three kids shoveled with my dad, there was always snow. We survived with four big shovels and a heavy wooden snow scoop built in Saco, Maine. Days were spent outside shoveling in shifts and sledding in between. Today I survive with my husband pushing snow by plow while I'm tucked inside listening to the wind, warmed by wood while fragrant soups simmer requiring a stirring now and again. 

Yet the snow comes and comes. The promise of spring is remembered inside by a bit of forcing. All that is required is a tea cup-like container, a few small rocks, a narcissus bulb, water and the knowledge that energy will be harnessed to grow a little Spring, but on its' own time.