Yes, it is still winter, but there are a few small token blossoms - the prelude to spring. The slender green spears of crocus and daffodil are reaching tentatively through the rich, dark soil and peering at the sky. In town, tiny red and yellow flowers are popping up all over the place, but here on the hilltop they are still waiting. They are motionless on the outside, but somewhere in that thread-like shoot of green there is beauty growing; a beauty which will slowly, gracefully emerge into petals of pale lavender and yellow.
Inside the house, thriving on the fragments of sunshine that stream through the window, is my little potted rose bush. There are several flowers blooming into complete (if miniature) crimson roses. They would be perfect, except for one factor: the never-ending parade of aphids which reappear every morning. But I very unceremoniously blow them out the door every time I water the bush, in the hope that one day I will get rid of them forever. And the satin softness of each flushed rose leaf when they are aphid-free is enough to make up for the little pests.
Flowers, of course, aren't the only signs leading up to spring's flurry of growth and color. There are so many subtle messages on the topic, beginning as early as mid-January, and even before that I know that there is a pulse of life under that hard, frozen ground, and a stirring to future wakefulness along the veins of the wintering trees. There is never a time of year when the world is entirely silent, it seems. From one spring to the next, including in the dead of winter, there is always quiet, and often invisible, living going on. But now I can finally see it, and in just a few months there will be a full, vibrant, rich splendor of music dancing through the garden and woods.
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