Think Spring: A Small Tribute to the Season

If you were to pay tribute to one facet of spring, what would it be?

I’ve lived for years in both Michigan and South Texas, and I can tell you that spring is a season of hope, wonder, and delight no matter where you’re from.

I know, I know; if you live in the frozen tundra called the North, spring feels like the proverbial carrot dangled in front of the horse—the weary, frozen, hopeless horse, you’d probably like to add. You’re told that if you just keep plodding along week after week, you’ll eventually get to sink your teeth into that most delectable of seasons. You rather doubt it, yet on you plod. Really, what choice do you have? Besides, you tell yourself, there was that one day last week, that 60-degree nibble that tasted of the coming thaw…but that was the day before the four-inch snow dump. The horse rolls its eyes, gives up hope, and plops its rump in the nearest snowbank.

But you know you still love spring.

If you’re from the deep south, you may have blinked and missed spring entirely. I remember one February day several years ago; I stepped outside my Texas apartment and realized suddenly that it was spring! The sun, the smells, the air itself told me so. I was giddy with excitement. So long, sweaters! Spring has sprung! But by noon that day it was already summer, and I needed some sun screen. The mild temperatures seemed to last all of four hours that year, but they were sweet indeed. You southerners may be able to relate.

But you know you still love spring.

See, no matter where you’re from or how dissatisfied you are with the current state of your state, you just can’t help loving this freshest of all seasons.

Here are a few things I’ve fallen in love with again this spring:

*The sight of red-breasted robins eyeballing the ground for worms, even though it’s still snowing
*Little shoots of green peeking through the dirt where you didn’t even know flowers were planted
*Ducks waddling through puddles and quacking like raspy old women who’ve smoked three packs a day since kindergarten
*The smell of fresh, damp earth just starting to warm up in the sunshine
*Canada geese bobbing their heads at you and honking like the squeak of a straw through a plastic lid

I could list many more things I love, but by the time I finished, it would be summer. The Modern American poet e.e. cummings also celebrated his joyful, childlike exuberance about the season in a poem that we call “in Just-”

The poem goes on in much the same fashion for two-ish more stanzas (if you can call the stanzas), but you get the picture. Cummings is excited about spring. I mention his poem to say this: you can’t possibly have stranger and less-relatable aspects of spring to share, so don’t feel shy.

Go ahead—what do you love about spring?