Spring Is the Thing

I have a favorite time of the year, and we’re a little more than ankle-deep in it right now. Yep, I’ll take Spring over all the other seasons, and not because my birthday falls during it (thanks, Mom!), though I just realized that and that is a pretty good reason.

Spring is my favorite season, frankly, more for the promise than the actual performance.

Sitting at a computer keyboard right now I can attempt to make lighthearted sport of the fluctuations in temperature and overall weather we can have during any given week, or in some cases, the same day. Of course, when I’m out walking around in my neighborhood, that jacket I put on for the morning chill does become a bit burdensome when the sun comes out and the breeze pauses, and I feel like I’m inside an EZ Bake oven.

Speaking of walking around, a selling point about spring for me, and combined with the leap forward of the clocks for Daylight Saving Time, is all that extra daylight we have in the evening after dinner. More than enough for a leisurely stroll, in my case a couple of laps around Chelsea Parade and then a wander down Sachem Street with a possible detour to the Lower Falls of Uncas Leap to check on the leftover winter ice.  

In very short order, we’ll start seeing a lot more activity in and around the falls as a lot of folks work to enhance that area and make it a must-see destination (and then some of us will complain about the traffic and the noise and the litter because that’s what we do).

The other evening just past the Blackstone Apartments, a little bit late to the game, but still, I finally saw my first robin of spring although I don’t think he looked very much like Burt Ward (but I didn’t get a good or close look at him). Others will follow no doubt.

I’m not good with the names of the various early Spring flowers (aside from crocuses and daffodils) that push through the ground, though I am happy for their company, and I pay close attention to the still bare branches of the various deciduous trees, especially the ones that line Chelsea Parade, some of whom stubbornly held on to their brown and dead leaves into late fall/almost early winter last year. 

I applauded their perseverance and pluck then and now I strain to spot the soft red glow of buds on those same branches signaling the cycle of life hasn’t so much started as continued.

It's not that I dislike the other seasons, though thirteen months’ service in Greenland almost a half-century ago, probably put me off winter for the rest of my life (strange, when all you have is a sled to worry about, snow is terrific, but when you have a shovel instead, not so much).

I can’t prove this, but in my experience, out walking during the Spring, I see more people with smiles on their faces (especially now that we’ve stopped playing ‘who was that masked (wo)man?), who say Hello back when I say hello to them and who seem to have a little more pep in their step than maybe they did in February.

Spring is about optimism, plans, and projects.

I hope you have enough of the first to see you through the other two.
-bill kenny