There is always one day, right in the beginning of spring, on which it feels like the sun is literally pouring through my skin, coursing through my bloodstream, and pumping into my heart — which expands with its golden bounty, opening up more than it has in these grey-brown months, when it has been brittle, has had to be guarded, has throbbed only gently lest its nearly frozen vessels crack apart — a day on which my breathing slows and deepens, and I cannot stop smiling at strangers, whom I know to be fellow survivors: “We did it, we made it!”

And on this day, when sun and air are sweeter than they’ll ever be and January is a half-forgotten dream, my green heart understands what it is to be a tree.