It snuck in quietly this year.
No drumroll, no big announcement. Just a soft shift in the light when I stepped outside this morning. The kind of light that does not feel like winter anymore, even if the air still has a little bite to it.
Today is the Vernal Equinox. The day where everything balances out. Equal parts day and night. A brief moment where the planet seems to pause and say, alright, let’s start fresh.
You would think something that ancient and precise would feel more dramatic. But here, it feels like Roanoke does most things – understated, a little bit hidden, waiting for you to notice.
The redbuds are trying.
Not fully there yet, but if you look closely along the edges of the neighborhoods, you can see the first hints of purple pushing through. The trees are still mostly bare, but they have that restless look about them, like they are deciding whether it is finally safe to wake up.
Up along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I would bet the wind is still cold enough to remind you it is only March. But down in the city, the sun is starting to linger just a little longer on the sidewalks, on the brick, on the parked cars that somehow already have a thin layer of pollen beginning to think about existing.
That is how spring starts here. Not all at once. Not like flipping a switch.
More like a negotiation.
Winter is still in the room, arms crossed, not quite ready to leave. But spring has shown up anyway, set its bag down, and is making itself comfortable.
And today, right in the middle of it, the math works out perfectly. Twelve hours of light, twelve hours of dark. A rare kind of fairness that we do not get much of anywhere else.
It makes you think about balance in a different way.
Not the big, life-changing kind. Just the small things. Opening the windows for a few minutes in the afternoon. Letting the house breathe. Taking a walk a little later than you would have last week because now you can. Noticing that you do not need quite as heavy a jacket, even if you still bring it along out of habit.
Pearl spent a good part of the afternoon parked in a sunbeam like it was her job. Which, honestly, might be the correct way to observe the equinox. Find the light. Sit in it. Do not overcomplicate things.
There is something reassuring about it.
No matter how strange things get, no matter how long winter feels some years, the tilt of the Earth keeps doing its thing. The balance comes back, even if just for a day.
And from here on out, the light wins a little more each evening.
You can feel it already.
