Gabi Froden: When is spring coming?

When is spring coming? I don’t know. All I know is that when I still lived in Sweden, I would see the signs more clearly. It might be because I live in the inner city now, and less time is spent wandering the outskirts of the small town where I grew up. I used to walk from our house into the field, look at newborn lambs and sit in meadows of white flowers. Yep, that cliché, that was me. I don’t really walk into any fields now, and I don’t hang out with any sheep at all, despite living in Scotland where they exist in abundance. But I look for those signs of spring where I can in a dirty, built-up city. A tree tentatively turning green, a rare flower fighting the cold. The older I get, the more I miss being in Sweden at the turn of the seasons. I like it when it gets colder, warmer, lighter, and darker. The change is perhaps a little more obvious in the north, and I love it. It keeps my body in check. I feel odd living in a climate that is more or less always 13 degrees. I miss really cold days – and really warm ones too. The in-between is oddly discomforting. A whole lot of grey nothing. I can still love living here, and I do. But I want my spring to look like a field of frolicking lambs, not a tiny flower in a small square. Long live the explosion of life!