Spring!

Here in Kansas City this year, March started off in a chilly and cloudy mood. February was warmer than usual, and the crocuses and daffodils started to get a jump on the season - started being the operative word. They popped out of the ground, the first blooms appeared, and they stopped right there. They grew no taller. Buds that hadn't yet opened stayed tightly coiled and those first, precocious, precious flowers shrank back into themselves as best they could, to wait out the cold spell.

They stayed in suspension for two weeks and more, until spring arrived on both the calendar and in person here today. 

Yesterday started out with me in my heaviest winter coat, a north wind blowing, and the temps in the teens. Those temps inched up through the day yesterday, then took a jump when the wind shifted to the south just before noon today. It will continue to blow strong through the afternoon, and is slated to raise the temperature to nudge sixty. 

Poof! Winter, begone!

As I walk the dog each morning, I've made my way past a patch of daffodils; those early bloomers I referenced in the first paragraph. I've been cheering them on for the last couple of weeks. The temps would dip below freezing each night, and my heart would lift each morning when I walked by to see they'd survived to see yet another day. I thought sure, that 17 degree morning, that they had lost their battle against the cold. Their petals were shriveled, their stems bent until the flower heads touched the dirt in sad surrender to the elements.

But despite their seeming fragility, they survived! As I walked past in the clear light of dawn this morning, I celebrated to see their cheery yellow heads lifting in triumph from the ground. They'd made it, anyways!

If I am ever in a fight against evil, and I get to choose my allies, I hope I am able to choose the daffodils to be on my side. Such persistence in the face of odds; their delicate grace belies their toughness.

Beauty Is.