When I first moved to Seattle, my freshman year in college, I didn’t believe in seasonal affected disorder. I had lived through eleven Russian winters. Seasons seemed natural and expected, part of a rhythm that I never questioned. I have to admit that my relationship to the seasons has become more complicated since then. I have been waking up to their subconscious effect on me and I have been angry at my sense of a loss of control.

I have to admit that this winter has been a long one for me. Five years of living in the Pacific Northwest and the clouds are so heavy. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to run a half-marathon which means I have been getting up three times a week in the dark to make enough time to run before work. This has led to my obsessive checking of the sunrise/sunset calendars online, to my careful calculating of when it will be light.

And the light is coming slowly. I watch it progress across the sky now, and I am grateful because I have been waiting, anticipating, willing it to being. So, for this theme of spring and awakening I thought this poem would be best:

Running, first thing

inhabiting the dark and filling

it with only the pounding of my feet

like i am knocking

at the door of the world and waiting

to be let in.

Always moving and subtly guarding

the Blue Heron, those two women

making breakfast and preparing coffee

I am blessing their doorways

passing as the angel of death

or the star of the morning.

I will summon the sun

bring it to rising

with my heart poundings

that is prayer, truly

as my breath speaks for each sleeper

I am weaving

I am bringing

another day into being.