What a winter it has been, both rare and dramatic.

First, incessant rain. Then heavy snow. And just when it seemed the last branches had finally been cleared, along came Storm Nils, moving through southern and southwestern France with wind and more rain, unrelenting. We were away when it passed, and somehow, miraculously, we were spared the worst. Still, it was there in what we came back to. Trees down, some gone entirely, the ground disturbed. The wind had reached 132 km/h. Lescure’s landscape rearranged once again.

And so the plans we had made are set aside. We are back to cutting and clearing. Days pass like this. The slow, steady work of restoration. The land feels still. Or perhaps that’s just me trying to convince myself it isn’t screaming in chaos like I am. It is hard, sometimes, to see a place change. You grow used to a certain view. You come to love a tree where it stands. And when it is gone, or the line of sight shifts, something in you resists. A sense of place. The quiet ways we attach ourselves.

LIFE INSISTS ON FLOWERING

The early spring sun is out, though. And one day I begin to notice things I had not seen before. The shapes of what has fallen, the curve of a branch. Beneath the work, beneath the exhaustion, something is slowly unfolding. Blossoms push through mud and frost.

I see how part of me resists the change, holding on to what was familiar. And another part simply watches.They are both there, like two squabbling children. After a few days, something softens. A quiet acceptance seeps in.

Beauty persists. Even in what has fallen. Even in what seems lost. And then, there is growth again. Both outside, and within.