Today was the first full day of spring. Strange how the birds in the scraggly trees outside my window seemed to realize it and immediately began to crank up the full chirping volume at oh-dark-hundred. Given the ashen skys, the deep chill and the general lethargy of the rest of the world, I'm not sure I would have remembered it was the first full day of spring had the overly cheerful meteorologists on NBC not reminded me at least 50 times this morning. They seemed almost as enthusiastic as the birds outside my window - possibly becuase it's easier to predict "sunny and hot" more easily than "it's going to snow - sometime this winter."
While I typically think of March as the one seasonless month of the year (how else do you explain an 80-degree, sun-filled day and a snowstorm in the same week?) and I don't start celebrating spring until April, I felt today deserved some sort of spring-like tribute.
For me, spring means an escape from the cold, damp clasp of winter, a celebration of color after a season of monocromatic days that leach slowly into each other, until one can hardly differentiate one day from the next. The sapphire skies and chartreuse leaves, red-breasted robins and golden daffodils of the new season mark a pointed contrast from the pasty vanilla skies and stark skeletal trees waving their naked limbs at passers-by.
In the early days of college, spring meant fleeing Cache Valley at the first hint of green on the horizon. After months trapped and tortured by the brutal canyon winds, the dense morning fogs and the months-long snowpack in the hollowed-out bottom of the great Lake Bonneville, one could hardly wait to breathe spring air on the other side of the mountains. Today, spring means a whole new set of adventures - the palest pink landscape and soft blossomy scents of early morning weekends spent in the shadows of giants along the Tidal Basin, the rich homemade taste of Bluebucks and Pecan french toast at Eastern Market and tangy, sweet stickiness of fresh strawberries, sun-kissed and blessed by the salty mist rolling in from Back Bay.
Spring isn't my favorite season, but after months of being trapped in the colorless void of winter, it's hard to keep that in mind.
2 comments:
The past two mornings, as I walked to the bus stop, I've heard birds singing in the tress. Scraggly, yes. Haven't see a bird but certainly do hear them.
Then on my way home today, as I started down my street, a beautiful, red cardinal flies across my path.
Spring is here.
I've noticed blossoms on Fox Mill recently. I think it's finally arrived!
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