This photo doesn’t have much to do with the title directly, but I thought it looked like a giant eye gazing at the trees above, searching for the first hints of leaves to appear.

Every day I check The Weather Channel’s 10-day forecast online, and every day it says in a few more days it will be warmer. But it seems impossible to catch up to those avowed days. They perpetually remain the hope of impending warmth, instead of warmth itself. On the rare day that does see a hint of springtime, winter is always right behind, ready to reclaim its territory.

Saturday was nearly sixty. Then, the wind picked up and the temperatures plummeted. This morning it was seventeen degrees in my car. I checked the forecast and not only will it be cold tomorrow, but they’re promising 2-4 inches of snow! That’s just crazy talk for the eastern shore. We see two types of precipitation here: rain and fog. Snow is the Bigfoot of the eastern shore — an elusive myth that’s talked about, but rarely documented.

Those warm days are apparently still a promise, but I now have to wait until early next week to have them. And I don’t want to. My fingers are hovering over the thermostat control, twitching above the windowsill, dying to fling it up and let in some fresh air. The plants in my narrow strip of a yard are feeling the urge, too; neon green buds hang uncertainly from their tips as if wondering if they’d made a bad choice in showing up early for the party.

I feel like Mother Nature is dragging me along through the last gasps of winter by dangling in front of me this promise of things to come. And I — like a good little donkey — keep trotting behind, eyes fixed on the prize.