Spring is finally coming to the woods where I often walk with my dog, Hannah. When we went last week, the trail was still icy in many places and the wind was bitter cold, rattling leaves that still were clinging to their tree branches (ash or aspen, I think, but I can’t recall). But the angle of the sun had changed, growing higher in the sky, altering the way the light moves through and across everything. Parts of the ground were bare, and the shores around Halfway Brook were opening, it’s waters full and flowing. Mallard ducks were pairing up, and crows called in the trees high above, seeming to follow us as we made our way along the trail.

The times of seasons changing are so beautiful to me, almost more so than the seasons themselves, when that sense of them coming is palpable and visible. I think sometimes we get complacent when conditions are stable, eventually growing used to the headiness of summer or the coziness and chill of winter. But in those in-between times, like now, a real sense of possibility emerges for me, of getting another chance to make a fresh start and wake up to all the life around me.