"This season is ... "

Technically, it's still winter in Chicago. In reality, the past few days have felt like summer. Today I hit the beach after school, napping and reading in the sunshine. Certainly, an act that like is normally inconceivable in Chicago this time of year. Somewhere in the muddle of what is still winter but feels like summer is spring; sweet birds chirping, trees budding, reminders of life to come spring. I have been eagerly awaiting the day in room 104 when we can switch the "This season is ..." board to say "spring" instead of "winter." 


I am excited, yes. But with spring coming, I am a mix of bittersweet emotions. The season of life at Bethesda is dwindling. The days of college life will soon be long gone. The days of my sweet students in room 104 will soon come to an end. This chapter will close. This story will end. But with spring comes life; the hope that something is growing, something has been stirring all winter long. Something will bloom again. Something is coming. I will move into a new apartment. I will (hopefully) get a job. Life will change and move and something beautiful will spring up. 


As winter ends and spring approaches, I am both nostalgic for the past few years and hopeful for what's next. I am both scared and excited. I am a mix of emotions, feelings, and thoughts. I want to let spring work its way in me. I want to feel the season, in the least tree-hugger way possible. I want to let spring soak in, reflecting and remembering why it matters. I want to be aware and in tune with the hallmarks of spring; that life comes out of frozen ground, that there is something more to come. 

“In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.”  - Parker Palmer






How will you let spring work its way in you? What do you learn from spring? What are you reflecting on, as you move from winter into spring? Is it hard to hope, or easy to hope in what's to come?