It Is Spring

In general, I consider myself to be a fairly good driver. I don’t speed. I’m aware of others on the road. I never block intersections. I switch lanes when I’m in the way. I always let people in. I never honk unless it’s to say hello.

But on days like today, the first day of spring, I have to constantly move my eyes away from distractions. The trees seem to have burst into pink overnight. They make me think of playing cards painting the roses red. They are that perfect and magical. Over and over they try to pull me into their trap of attention as I drive by. Over and over I have to tear myself away from their soft, tangled beauty.

All spring – and all your life, if you are willing – the earth will call to you in colors and music and words. It will be full of wonder and it will be wonderful. It will pull you away from your daily routines, your struggles and your worries, and remind you that there is time again for change. It will offer you a gift that is nameless, but is something close to understanding. It will show you that there is no such thing as ordinary. There is only this. There is only the way the seasons come and go, over and over, forever.

The first day of spring means free water ice at Rita’s, and who am I turn down such sweetness? So I went and stood in line.

I watched as two geese flew overhead, mirror images of one another, proof that no one should have to go through this life alone. I was the only one to look up, to follow them across the sky until they drifted out of sight, into the unknown. No one else noticed them. No one else watched the depths of understanding that rose and fell in the perfect unison of their four flapping wings. No one else felt this love but me.

I thought of the many different ways there are to approach this world, how we can be in the same place at the same time and have completely different experiences. I thought of the way our minds are made of the same matter, but can somehow work so dissimilarly. I thought of flowers, and the way they grow from the same soil, but somehow become so singular, each with its own unique scents and secrets pooled within the core of its blossom. I thought of the way we are all both ordinary and extraordinary, all at once, all the time.

And as I drove away with my mango water ice, already melting in the warmth of spring, I had to remind myself to focus on the road, the task at hand, because all around me grew ideas that called to me. All around me the world opened to golden, shining light. All around me the pink trees sang of love.

Tonight, the scent of barbeque wafts through my open windows. I rub my naked toes against each other. Spring is unfolding. I accept her gifts as they come.

I watch the night descend on the pink petals of the trees, these wild and wise ornaments of the earth. I listen to the life outside my house, the people running and jumping and yelling through the streets, leading lives both so similar and so different from my own. I hear the earth call to me its simple, silly joy. It is ordinary and extraordinary. It is spring, over and over, forever.

Hum For A Blustery Day

Somehow the warmest day of the year so far was also the windiest. It was also, somehow, one of the happiest. There was no reason for my joy, other than the weather, or the fact that the day before had been terrible and I was in need of change. Happiness doesn’t require more reasons than that. Happiness doesn’t require reason at all. It simply arrives when it’s time, over and over, like spring.

On my lunch break, I walked out across the back field. I stood behind the shed, filled with bikes and buckets and shovels – the tools of childhood – where the groundhogs had burrowed a home for themselves beneath. I watched the tree branches wave. I watched the clouds move. I watched airplanes glide through the blue silk of the sky like flying fish, leaving parallel white streams behind them. I reveled in the movement.

The wind wrapped me in its arms. It pushed and it pulled and it demanded my attention. I took off my shoes and planted my feet firmly on the ground, mimicking the trees. I bent. I waved. I moved, but I did not fall.

This is what the trees know. They know how to be flexible in the wind. They know that to stand rigid and unmovable against forces more powerful than themselves is a kind of death. They know that what doesn’t bend, breaks. They know how to gracefully let go of their leaves, to watch them float away as quickly and purposefully as the clouds. They know how to change. This is how they remain.

And so for a while I stood there, barefoot and happy, following their example. I took deep breaths and let go of things. I pictured the wind scooping them up and carrying them further and further away. Meanwhile I stayed, tied to my life by an unbreakable string, rooted in the joy that remained.

So this is happiness, I thought. This is life. It’s as easy as breathing. It’s as easy as bending with the wind. It’s as easy as turning the instability of the world into an example of our own powerful resilience. This is why I am here.

I require no more reasons than that. I am here to grow, and to change, and to make of my life a palace of beautiful leaves to cast out into the wind and to come back to me each spring. I am here to be both constant and moving. I am here to stretch my limbs.

Later that day, I remembered that it was Holi, the Hindu celebration of the arrival of spring. It is my favorite holiday, full of color and life and joy, like spring itself. Six years ago I stood on a rooftop in India and danced beside the trees among a group of strangers I would quickly grow to love. We threw colored powder and painted each other into masterpieces. We threw our arms into the air and laughed. We threw away all of the pieces of ourselves we were trying to leave behind. We watched them float away on the wind.

We welcomed spring, and happiness, and our upcoming adventures. We welcomed the uncertainty. We welcomed change.

On the warmest day of the year so far, I opened the door and walked out across the back field. I stood behind the shed. I pushed and pulled and bent in the wild, insatiable wind. I kicked off my shoes. I watched the trees. I breathed in and out, and let go.

And I swear I could taste it – the Indian air, the sweet constant happiness of spring.

Children, It’s Spring

“And this is the lady
whom everyone loves,
Ms. Violet
in her purple gown

or, on special occasions,
a dress the color
of sunlight. She sits
in the mossy weeds and waits

to be noticed.
She loves dampness.
She loves attention.
She loves especially

to be picked by careful fingers,
young fingers, entranced
by what has happened
to the world.

We, the older ones,
call it Spring,
and we have been through it
many times.

But there is still nothing
like the children bringing home
such happiness
in their small hands.”

~Mary Oliver

Over The Rainbow

It was spring. The trees blossomed. The flowers bloomed. The bright sun beckoned to us. “Come out. Feel my warmth. Enjoy this day.” And so we did. My mother took us to the arboretum and we spent the entire afternoon among the trees and flowers, delighting in their sweetness. I was young.

Still, I remember the impulse. I remember feeling so surrounded and consumed with the beauty of the world. I remember that first recognition of happiness, in its purest form. I remember wanting to mark the occasion.

And so I ran. I ran hard and I ran fast. I ran in a way that was exclusive to my childhood – not for exercise, not as stress relief, not away from something – but in a pure, primal way that required no thought or motivation. I remember that feeling well, that freedom, that urge to move my little legs just because I could, just because it felt good, just because I was young and it was spring.

I reached the top of a hill and stood there looking down at my mother and the rest of the world. I looked up at the sky. I thought I could almost touch it.

And because I hadn’t yet learned to write, I sang. I sang strong and I sang loud. I sang in a way that was exclusive to my childhood – before I had learned to become self-conscious of such things. I sang because it felt good, because I was young, and it was spring.

And so my little lungs filled with air, and my little mouth formed the words, and I serenaded my mother, and the rest of the world, with Somewhere Over The Rainbow. It was the perfect song for that perfect moment, and I remember knowing that even as a child. I remember the way I sang and felt everything else fade away. I remember believing that there was such a place, a land that I heard of once in a lullaby, where dreams that I dared to dream really do come true. I remember thinking, maybe this was it.

Somewhere over the rainbow, all days would be this perfect. Somewhere over the rainbow, I could stay like this forever. Somewhere over the rainbow, trees would always blossom and flowers would always bloom. I would always be young and in love with the world. It would always be spring.

And the thing is, after all of this time spent learning the painful lessons of what it means to be alive, after all of these years chasing down courage and a heart and a brain, after discovering over and over again that they were with me all along, I still find myself thinking, maybe this is it.

Maybe the happy little birds chirping outside my window right now have already flown over the rainbow. Maybe that I woke up with the clouds far behind me, the breathtakingly blue sky of this day welcoming me into it, means that I have already arrived. Maybe this is where troubles melt like lemon drops. Maybe I could stay like this, forever.

Maybe I will always delight in such sweetness. I will always blossom and bloom. I will always be that little girl, running and singing and almost touching the sky. Because it feels good, and I am young, and it is spring. Because if birds can do it, why then, oh why, can’t I?