By Guild member L.M. Guiled

Can you feel it? The wind whips through the trees, but it is warmer, it has flung off Old Jack Frost and he is packing up his things in a huff, annoyed that it is too warm for him here. Things are stretching just beneath the soil, waking up and reaching.

The daffodils in the garden next to my house beneath my dryer vent are the first to tip me off every year. Green leaf tips pushing proudly up, unafraid to have their turn. There are still patches of snow in the yard, but these first spring flowers keep their own council. 

The tips of new stories and the deep roots of older WIPs have been waking up and stretching in my own mind, shaking off the snow, asking me when I might sit down to write and edit. I know I should. “Oh please,” they whisper, “come listen! We need you!”

The hustle and bustle of the world has different plans, always pushing past you to the next thing. It is already Easter at CVS, and Anthropologie has a very artful summer strawberry in the picture window. Corporate America has scheduled spring for tomorrow and summer for the day after that. My calendar, to-do list, and email accounts are ping pinging, crying out for me to go and do and move and buy (or not buy) and meet and talk, and if I remember to schedule it, to rest.

Unlike flowers, we have deadlines, needs, and schedules to juggle, often with too few arms. For many it is impossible or impractical to even think about slowing down to smell the flowers. However, we can take inspiration from the eventualities of the daffodil. We can visualize our finished work in progress. We can plan for the time it takes to hone our craft until it hums like the visiting bumble bee, until it dances cheerfully in the winds of query. We can know that our work will bloom with us this spring. 

Exhale the stagnancies of winter. Let that warmer wind rush through your clothes and through your home, bringing the promise of something new. Remember: you have time to reach and stretch and do the things that you know how to do. You are already doing it, and every inch you grow leads to eventually.