January 8

Today is a promise of what will assuredly come in a few months.

At midmorning, the temperature rose above freezing with the rising sun and calm winds. Our January thaw is temporary, we know, yet at its outset we can’t help but feel rejuvenated thinking that winter will release its grip and spring will one day arrive.

My favorite part of the thaw are the earthy smells that carry on the breeze. Just last week, my winter walk on our access road into the woods was cold and snowy and in every way felt like January. The sun had seemingly little warmth, and there was none of the woodsy smells.

Today is almost a spring-like feel, and this same walk hints at life reawakening. There are the sounds of water dripping off the laden boughs of the evergreens, and what gentle breeze passes carries the familiar smells of leaf mold and soil and humid Earth. I walk in my footprints of last week, when the snow was nearly a foot deep, and now those places that I compressed with each step are nearly melted through, revealing the Earth and detritus of last fall.

We know that winter will return soon, cruelly in a way to remind us that the long haul is still ahead. But we are turning the corner on January soon, and the sun is ever so slowly getting higher in the sky. These brief glimpses of spring are our reminder and hope that cycles do come around, that nothing lasts forever, and with patience there is reward.