Spring Magic
My kids are happily playing Legos in the other room. I need you to understand how momentous this occasion is. After roughly 100 days of bickering, whining, and trying to sneak more screen time, my kids are happily playing together. They’re on mid-winter break right now (which is apparently a thing in Seattle) and trying to figure out entertainment in the middle of a pandemic is not the easiest. We’ve already done an online watercolor class, made tissue paper stained glass suncatchers, played two games and eaten lunch. Finally, I went outside to shovel our driveway (we got probably 16 inches of snow this weekend) and when I came back in…magic had occurred.
I remember this magic from the Before times, back when the girls didn’t spend every waking hour together (and all of the sleeping ones too, what with sharing a room). Forrest and I would go out to work in the garden and we would pop back in to check on everyone and…they were happy. But it’s rare now, and even more special. I’m living for the little moments these days. In case my past ten posts haven’t made it clear, spirits are not high in the Dillaway household. We are grumpy. We are annoying each other. We are having to apologize over and over and over. It’s exhausting.
It’s not that we’re not trying. We go for walks and bike rides. I’m doing yoga nearly daily. There are art projects and bread baking and bouquets of flowers bought to cheer us up. We are choosing joy. Again and again and again. Choosing and choosing and choosing. I feel like I’m constantly trying to pull on the rip cord of an old lawnmower to get the positivity going. And my arm is getting tired.
But I feel the little magical moments peeking through sometimes. And they’re saving me right now. I want the big moment, the big relief, but I don’t think that Hollywood story is going to come true this time. There’s a book in the Little House on the Prairie series called The Long Winter, which is about a really long, terrible winter where everyone is starving to death and everything is terrible. But, after all the hardship and difficulty and loneliness, Laura is lying in bed one night and she feels a Chinook wind blow. The warm wind heralds the end of winter and she knows the worst is over.
Maybe that’s why I’m such a spring junkie. Spring brings such unexpected delight. Shoots popping up through the ground, sun peeping from behind clouds, buds open and change the landscape overnight. I don’t have to choose joy, it jumps out of me. In this season, this long winter, where we are having to choose joy and compassion and so, so much patience, I can’t wait until those things can come easily again.
The girls stopped playing together happily an hour ago and I’ve given up and handed them the screens back. I’m staring out my window at melting snow and my brussels sprouts, which are theoretically overwintering for an early spring harvest. Right now, all I can see is the top set of leaves and I’m not sure if they’ll survive. But they’re pretty hardy things and, even if they don’t make it, those little green leaves poking up are a small magical moment, bringing with them the promise of spring, and better days.
