Let the Sun Shine In!

by Beverly Tjerngren

Spring is late coming to where I live in northern Sweden. It's the very tail end of April and the snow has finally, just now, melted away in all but the shadiest of corners. We've still not quite reached the point that it's stopped freezing at night. Though my husband and daughter have traded in their heavy coats for lighter-weight jackets, my mother-in-law has been known to point out cheerfully that we should still be dressing for winter until May 1. Despite the lingering vestiges of winter, however, Spring is definitely in the air and I couldn't be happier!

For the past couple of weeks the sun has been shining more often than not and we've had a good stretch of crisp, breezy days that are perfect for drying laundry outside on the clothesline. We've stashed our winter boots in the basement in favor of tennis shoes, we've put the kick-sleds in the garage and brought out our bicycles, and my husband has decided that it is safe, at last, to take the snow tires off our car.

Last weekend we spent a fair bit of time outside in the front yard, raking up leaves and dead grass and various other kinds of debris that spent the past six months hidden under a couple of feet of snow (we have two dogs -- I don't need to spell out in any more detail than that just what kind of debris most of it was, do I?). Though the raking is a tedious, laborious chore, it is one of my favorites because the payoff is so great -- within the matter of an hour or two, our dreary, winter-time yard was transformed. The sleeping beauty of lush greenness that has lain dormant these many months is on the verge of being revealed.

So, although the trees outside my window have yet to put out their buds, and I've seen nary a hint of tulip foliage poking up in my flower beds, Spring has come to my heart. Yesterday I left the windows and the balcony door open, and in the fresh April breeze that filled my house I could smell the promise of long, warm days and sunshine-y, yellow daffodils. On days like these I can almost forget that winter was ever here.