Waiting for the Snow to Melt

Down here in the valley, it’s almost summer. The grass is turning green, the aspens are shedding fuzzy catkins, and the maiden pinks and spring beauties are blooming. The mountains are still inaccessible, though, their peaks hidden under layers of rapidly melting snow. Up there, drifts are changing state from solid to liquid, trickling and dripping, dehydrating in the howling spring winds that sweep across the snowfields, sublimating moisture until the sun sets, the temperatures drop, and the soft snow freezes solid overnight only to begin melting again the next day.

Under the layers of snow, the ground is still hard, holding mule’s ears, bluebell, and mountain sunflower seeds in stasis. Do those seeds know what’s happening? Are they already waking up in the dark soil weeks before the warmth of sunlight seeps through the last of the snow? They must sense the change in light or pressure or temperature from pitch dark to gray, from crushing to easing, from frigid to cold, and they must begin to prepare to change from a seed to a sprout. They must gather their courage and strength, ready to feed it all to anemic seedlings that will push up through the last inches of grainy snow and clear-as-glass ice, reaching for the sun, creating chlorophyll, determined to bloom where they are, to exist. They make their choice before they know what awaits them—a late snowstorm or a drought, a smoking wildfire or the ideal combination of sunlight and rain.

This year, I identify with the ground under the snow and those wildflower seeds. I’m waiting like the willow buds and flower embryos, waiting for the snow to melt, and the soil to soften and warm, preparing to grow not into what I have been—not a buttercup or a golden aster, not alpine bistort or sandwort, not mountain harbells or forget-me-nots—but something else, something as useful as a wild rose, as practical as fireweed, as adaptable as yarrow, as tenacious as grass, something that embodies the alertness of a pika, the strength and grace of the elk, the fierceness of a badger, and the joy of a hummingbird.

As the sun rises a little further north each day and the temperatures trend upward, I gather my courage, honing an intention by feel, determined to thrive despite all the unknowns. What’s happening out there, above the snow, in the place I can’t see—the future? A world of blame and cold shoulders? A life of pain and fear and loss? Or is something else possible—a new way of being, shedding a hard shell to allow for leaves, stems, and flowers, so full of joy I float in a bubble of bright yellow light, unencumbered, radiating potential.

What’s next is equal parts unknown and opportunity, so, for now, the seeds and I prepare blindly in the dark under the snow, stockpiling that which will sustain us—determination, energy, intention, and hope. While we wait for the snow to melt.