Poor Will’s Almanack for the Final Week of Late Winter.
The days are lengthening a minute every day, but it is still hard for me to believe in spring. In the garden, daffodils and snowdrops have budded. Pussy willows are emerging with every thaw.
But I always want more, and I want it sooner, and I think that it is accepting just part of the whole that causes the problem. Considering just warmth and green as normal and good: That is what makes it hard to wait.
The big psychological mistake is rejecting harsh weather or bare trees or withered zinnias, thinking heat is better than cold, that leaves are better than empty branches, thinking that blooming flowers are better than spent flowers. Such prejudice is like jealousy or anger or regret: it eats away at me and makes me think that something is wrong with the world.
Luckily, the world is just fine. Everything is whole, both inside and outside, and both loss and gain are part of the whole. Unluckily, it is often hard to see that perfection, and it is even harder to accept it and the pain that it includes. It is so easy to forget that all together, things make sense. They are made that way, to be taken all together, accepted without reserve, nothing left out, and unless I pick and choose, unless I cheat and leave out the cold and the hurt, they can carry me forward into other seasons.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the first week of Early Spring. In the meantime, don’t be greedy. It’s all good.
