WILLIAMSVILLE — The other day, after we'd woken to a couple of inches of new snow, following a day of sunshine and melt, I overheard a woman in the grocery store say, “I wish spring would get here already.”
What we'd had was “sugar snow” - probably on account of it being sugaring season, but possibly because this short-lived sprinkling of snow is like a dusting of confectionary sugar.
Sloppy as it is, sugar snow momentarily freshens the landscape, then melts as quickly as it comes. In fact, sugar snow is as much a sign of spring as the blooming of the first crocus. And while I'll admit to a certain impatience for flowers and grass, I've learned to appreciate the early signs of spring that indicate the gradual warming of the earth.
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One of the first signs I welcome is the return of the light. As early as February, the sunlight strengthens, and I know that the cold is inevitably losing its grip, allowing ice to return to water. Streams laugh as water resumes tumbling over stones again.
Activity around the bird feeders increases. The goldfinches return, and as the season progresses, their dull winter plumage turns bright yellow. Already, there is birdsong in the morning where, in deep winter, there was just the hollow sound of the wind.
In the woods, the snow is littered with seed pods released in time to be carried by the melt and deposited in some fertile loam. Soot grays the snow on the fields, and the snow banks beside the roads shrink. Just because these aren't the stereotypical signs of spring as perpetuated in our greeting-card culture doesn't mean they aren't important hallmarks of the season's approach.
It's true that not every harbinger of spring is welcome, and spring roads can turn into a soupy mess. Driving the ruts may seem like bumper cars at a carnival, but aren't as much fun. Nevertheless, the mud itself is how the earth blooms, giving off a fragrance of renewal. While the mud roads are tough to drive, they're delightful to walk. Unlike winter's ice, the mud gives. I'm less likely to slip and fall. Mud allows me to relax my stride. And if I do fall, I'd probably just hurt my pride – and get dirty.
Dirt is a great sign of spring, and the dog brings in rafts of it, which triggers spring cleaning. With the spring sunlight slanting through the windows, I see how dirty they are and notice the cobwebs festooning the rafters and dust balls, like tumbleweed, blowing across the floor.
But just like sugar snow, the urge to clean house won't last. Slowly, spring will arrive, not in one steady progression of increasing warmth, but as the poet Robert Frost describes, as a flirtation of advance and retreat.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.
I didn't know the complainer in the grocery store; I was in a rush, so I resisted the temptation to grab her by the lapels, shake her, and say, “Hey, this is spring – in Vermont.”