I grew up in Hudson Heights, a small Quebec town, in a big oxblood-red house, its edges softened by wild grapevines and its foundation surrounded by cedars, ostrich ferns and huge hydrangeas. In late April, masses of tiny blue flowers (Scilla siberica), which I called bluebells, pushed through the receding snow.
As I recall, spring took its own sweet time. There seemed to be months of anticipation while the sun grew stronger, icicles melted in rhythmic drip, drip, dripping, and little rivers etched their way through the rotting ice. My mother and I would pull lawn chairs up to the sunniest side of the house onto an ever-widening patch of bare ground and bask there while the hens and ducks — as impatient for spring as
