I lay on the couch. My eyes are closed and I feel spring. I hear the rain falling to melt the last of the snow and I feel lighter. The way that one does in spring. I see myself getting up from the couch and I am wearing capri pants and a tshirt. I will go outside to say hello to the neighbours when the sun comes out. The kids will run up and down the street while the grown ups comment on how hard this winter was.

I open my eyes. The hard winter is still out there. It was -46 this morning, -50 on the weekend. Global warming has missed this place.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking or a sixth sense. Spring has to come. Everyone here is bone weary of the cold and losing our enthusiasm for defending why it is we stay where it seems no sane person would. It’s not always this bad, I insist, and it isn’t.

It may yet be -35 outside but I can tell – without the consult of a groundhog – that any minute now I will have opened my windows to enjoy the smell of rain pitpatting down on stubborn pockets of snow.

The thought of it takes my breath away. I will get it back when the time comes to take in the crisp clean air of a spring morning. Then I will lose it again from the joy.