A friend furrows her brow. "I made it through winter," she says. "I did so well this year. But suddenly, I feel like I'm totally falling apart. Like, isn't spring supposed to be flowery? Shouldn't this be the easy part?" We laugh at this, that anything might be the easy part.

Early spring feels like the season for these stark questions. It offers a kind of invitation to burn the bracken in the early bonfire, to set out the seed trays, empty the shelves. The act of tending to what is here – even when it’s muck-covered and colorless – sends out a kind of secret faith that growth is coming. Despite the evidence, despite the pace.