This year, I seem to have given up.  The ice is gone, the temperatures are rising, but the grass is still flat from pounds of winter snow.  Dead.  The crocuses bloomed and died under another snowfall; they lie in unpretty purple smears.  I don’t trust the daffodils.

My first pregnancy goes on like this, endlessly.  12 days after my due date I am resigned:  I will be pregnant, large and uncomfortable, the subject of pitying stares, for the rest of my life.  I sit at a café and accept this, find some peace.  A loud woman I barely know calls across the room, “Still pregnant, eh?”  I nod, irritated to a high itch.  My companions murmur soothingly.

But my baby was born, of course.  17 winters later, I await another spring, unconvinced.  The drear of winter has been too much.  I feel beaten down, like the dead, colorless grass.  I expect more dark nights and piles of snow.  My eyes do not let in the sunlight that stays past dinnertime.

I walk my dog and kick the stones left untidily by the curb, gathered there by snowdrifts.  There are still no leaves.  Then I feel a warmth on the back of my neck.  Sun.  Something shifts.  This is not a winter feeling.  I stop, let the sun soak in.

Maybe spring will come again this year, three or four weeks late.