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Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?  

-Friedrich Nietzsche

All our fat, jolly snowmen have lost their pebble eyes, their carrot noses; they are melting down into abstract, graceful, dancing forms that I find lovely and romantic.

Particularly because on the other, sunny side of the yard, the snow is gone, the bulbs have begun to poke through, the snowdrops nod in the breeze.

All the beautiful austerity of winter and the promise of spring, and the knowledge that in another few days the rains will come and wash it all away.

It was a good winter. But I am ready for the explosion of spring, the buzzing of insects, the return of the birds. It’s a nice feeling, watching the dance of the seasons, sitting contentedly between appreciative contemplation of the past and the anticipation of joys to come.

“When will it be summer?” asked the Flower, and she repeated this question each time a new sunbeam made its way down to her. But the summer was yet far distant. The snow still lay upon the ground, and there was a coat of ice on the water every night.“What a long time it takes! what a long time it takes!” said the Flower. “I feel a stirring and striving within me; I must stretch myself, I must unlock the door, I must get out, and must nod a good morning to the summer, and what a happy time that will be!”

And the Flower stirred and stretched itself within the thin rind which the water had softened from without, and the snow and the earth had warmed, and the Sunbeam had knocked at; and it shot forth under the snow with a greenish-white blossom on a green stalk, with narrow thick leaves, which seemed to want to protect it. The snow was cold, but was pierced by the Sunbeam, therefore it was easy to get through it, and now the Sunbeam came with greater strength than before.

“Welcome, welcome!” sang and sounded every ray, and the Flower lifted itself up over the snow into the brighter world. The Sunbeams caressed and kissed it, so that it opened altogether, white as snow, and ornamented with green stripes. It bent its head in joy and humility.

“Beautiful Flower!” said the Sunbeams, “how graceful and delicate you are! You are the first, you are the only one! You are our love! You are the bell that rings out for summer, beautiful summer, over country and town.

I came home yesterday from a weekend away, and my husband immediately grabbed my arm. “I have a present for you,” he said, and guided me outside to see the snowdrops, knowing that this would make me happier than any store-bought trinket.

No, he didn’t plant them, they were here when we moved in. But knowing how delighted I would be, to lie in wait for me to walk through the door so that he could show me right away– well, I suppose this is why I married the man.

And so the emergence of the snowdrops make me doubly happy this year. Who would have believed such a thing to be possible?

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

-Victor Hugo