So spring has arrived here, officially! Which it may or may not have back in Sweden. What’s really, practically changed here is the date, from March 20 to March 21.

In Sweden, the meteorological definition of spring is used, meaning that the 24-hour daily average temperature needs to be on the rise and between 0 and 10 Celsius for it to be labelled spring.

Odd that we don’t have one spring start concept one might think, but I guess it’s really a matter of just having to decide on something. If you wanna allow for four seasons in a year the change of season mathematically has to be somewhere in the vicinity of every three months and so each country will have to choose a definition type that fits the best to local circumstances. Portugal couldn’t possibly go for the Swedish variant, it would probably mean there would be no winter. And Sweden using the temperature indicator allows for the long and tall country to welcome spring with different timings in different parts of the country, which is probably more in line with the actual experience.

But no matter which definition is used, there, as well as here the process of spring is on-going and the signs of spring are already happening and have been happening for a while. And back lashes will still come. And no matter geography, spring always seems to be a long awaited season, one that is looked forward to and one whose signs are celebrated. Spring with it’s mesmerising smells, it’s bursting buds, it’s intensive color schemes, it’s life giving rain and it’s following growth enabling rays of sun.

But it seems to me spring also contains something else, a heaviness, a darkness, a sadness, a feeling of getting hopes crushed, a kind of a dispair. Or at least the waiting for spring does. With longing for something so much it is a close by feeling to get a bit crushed each time the signs of the finishing line are yet again drowned in cold rain or heavy wind and the rays of the sun don’t succeed in fighting their way through. And indeed it is acknowledged that surprisingly many mental lows and depressions coincide in time with just before the start of spring.

Danish poet Karin Boye wrote the poem that starts with the famous words “Of course it hurts when buds burst” already in 1935. Generations could and can still relate to the symbolism. Like the trees and the plants and the rays of sun we wait and wait and wait to burst when going through a life changing event, be it relation start or separation, birth or death, job or geographical move. We fear it, we postpone it, even if we know it will eventually bring good. We are afraid of letting go, because what if, and I know what I have, and maybe not, and we spend so much time fretting on the ifs and buts. We all do, just to different degrees and outspokenness, I am certain.

But then there’s the last paragraph of the poem.