Spring in the city

It is almost the end of March, and I walked home today in the wind and temperatures just below zero (32 degrees Fahrenheit, for my American friends). When I left the office, it was raining, and on my way home the rain turned into snowflakes that were so big they could kill a man. Yes, spring is long past due, and yes, they're warning us here in some parts of Canada that we have another six weeks to go, but, in good moments, I love the feeling of Nature reasserting herself in the midst of the city. Many walk home, huddled against the cold, jackets drawn tightly and looking toward the concrete sidewalk to avoid that chill in the bones from such a moist cold wind. But for a few moments, until I got the same chill running down my spine, I quite enjoyed the snow and the rain today. The trees had tiny prisms of water on the tips of their branches, refracting the light from cars and street lamps. The large, soft snowflakes were glowing white in the dusk light.

On a couple of eager bushes, small furry buds are quietly signaling a coming spring. In the morning, I wake now to sunlight and the chirping of birds. The city is beginning to awaken after a long and cold winter, and it is a beautiful reminder of the contingency of our city life. A reminder that our cities are concentrations of some parts of Nature and not separations from her. That they are merely an aggregation of certain ores and minerals into structures, an organization of extracts from various ecosystems into a new one, a collection of a few species into a different mode of interaction. And that, in the end, all of this exists only with her permission - and this is the wonder and beauty of it.