Bloomin' Hope

It’s not cold. It’s not winter. It’s not anything. Disjointed days of 70 degree warmth and sunshine book-ended by cool, damp nondescript days of rain with the threat of a very real and tangible winter descending from the north. In winter warmth and sun you can rise on dreamlike waves of irrelevant happiness. On the rainy, dark days every debt, empty work hour or other tokens of loneliness weigh down like a hundred wet, woolen blankets.
But there is green in the fields instead of the usual mid-winter grey and optimistic blooms of hellebores, mahonias, witch hazels, quince, and winter honeysuckle explode in anticipation and unshakable belief in genuine spring.