Forty years ago, on a spring day much like the ones we’ve longed for since December, my college friends Colleen and Jeff packed up their U-Haul and drove off, leaving me standing in their driveway holding their houseplant, an oxalis. I didn’t know that a person could own one potted plant across an entire lifetime. But now, four decades later, that same oxalis has spent the winter in our south-facing upstairs window, waiting like us, for spring, when it can go back outside.
