Spring has been slowly arriving, day by day. Not for a great many years have I had the pleasure of watching winter’s dormancy awaken into Springtime. It brings back memories of childhood in the north-eastern United States, where I was born in early Spring. My mother taught me to notice the first signs of Spring. From the frigid and dormant winter, we could observe the branches begin to bud, and look alive again. Skunk cabbage would start to poke its leaves, still rolled into a point, up through the snow. The ice on the creek would begin to melt into gurgling water, and soon we would start to see the crocuses forming their blooms in the patches of snow still on the ground. It was exciting; this coming alive again. The hillsides began to turn pinkish with new growth, and then a light shade of spring green. Ma and I would gather budded branches of fruit trees and forsythia, and bring them indoors to open into bloom. In the woods we began to see Trout Lily’s and Spring Beautys, and the buds of Mountain Laurel forming. Next, the forsythia bushes exploded out with fragrant clouds of bright yellow, and the jonquils and tulips painted the landscape in beautiful drifts of color. Here in Slovenia, and all over Europe, Spring is arriving. Witnessing this process again, after the long winter, strikes a primal chord in me, and a part of myself comes out of dormancy.