Sometime around mid-February, those of us who live where seasonal change is felt most keenly start the long wait for spring.

With that season of promise nearly upon us as I write, the signs of its approach seem sparse. An east wind is blowing off a frozen lake and temperatures returned to the teens overnight. Further defying the onset of warmer weather are the stubbornly intact patches of snow that, though beginning to diminish, cling to our landscape.

Absorbed in this state of waiting, many of us are edgy, irritable, and anxious, even as we try to remind ourselves that spring must come eventually. We glance outside and then look at the calendar, counting the days until the equinox. Still bundled in our winter coats and scarves, we gaze longingly at spring merchandise in stores. We rejoice and celebrate the occasional mild day, even as our hopes are dashed by another snowstorm or cold front.

We are waiting, and maybe not so well, especially when what we see and feel doesn’t fit our desire to shed our winter layers and bask in warmth again. Instead of getting locked in frustration, though, I am starting to notice that if I can quiet myself just a little,  I can see and hear signs that something in the earth has shifted, signaling a new season is on its way.

After all, although there is still snow on the ground, much of what fell during a March storm that blanketed our area last week has already started to disappear, revealing – could it be? – grass.  On closer inspection, I notice the tips of daffodil foliage emerging. Near a pond frozen over and covered with snow, I am able to see more and more of a log that has been our snow-depth gauge all winter. And the male cardinals who have brightened wintry days with their brilliant red feathers have broken their silence, moved to resume singing by what they know to be coming.

A fellow writer who senses this change says she is feeling the intensity of the sun on her walks in a way she did not in January. Her spirits have taken flight at the sight of returning red-winged blackbirds, robins, and bluebirds. “You know that winter has lost its grip and is on the way out,” she writes, “no matter how much it tries to make us feel that it isn’t.”

The day before our latest snowstorm, I found a woolly bear caterpillar on a lane between two open fields. Knowing the storm was coming, I tucked this little herald of spring into a brushy area inside the woods not only in hopes it would survive, but as a pledge of faith in the coming season of new life.

Waiting can be a time of watching and listening and delighting in what we see and hear, if only we will open ourselves to it. For me, these days of anticipation are ones in which I am reminding myself to spend time outside whenever I can, even if the temperature and wind speed are not quite ideal, and to keep my eyes and ears attuned to the harbingers of spring.