Delight in Spring

I’m sitting outside facing east, facing the still-bare trees and beyond them, Lake Superior. Cars hum by steadily on the road between, but I don’t see them because the tangling bushes are thick together, even without their leaves.

A pair of crocuses have begun to open, near the house, well-protected from the wind but in the full force of the sun. It’s April and the sun is hot and the wind, cool.

Flies buzz and are still confused after their hibernation. I heard a robin yesterday for the first time this year and didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t until I saw a flash of rusty red breast that I guessed it. More are trilling their throaty songs now, “chirp, chirp, chirp, chirrup!”

Wind sweeps through the red pine, balsam and spruce. Chickadees squeak. I don’t hear any incensed red squirrels, but it’s only a matter of time. They are territorial and aggravated by “love” this time of year.

The grass still matches the rather tired brown of the deer who wander freely into the yard, but upon closer examination there is green beneath the dead stuff.

Ennis played outside for the first time yesterday. Of course, we’ve gone on walks since he was born (and before that) in all sorts of weather, but yesterday, still in his soft winter boots, I set him down on the asphalt driveway and waited.

He waited. He stood, solid, unmoving, looking around with a half-grin, his eye brows furrowed in the sun. At last he took a few steps, but it was sitting on the lawn that delighted him

He picked up spruce cones and blown down sprigs, handing each one to me with pleasure. When I showed him how the dry aspen leaves were so light I could blow them from my palm with a puff, he giggled with surprise and delight! He handed me leaf after leave and laughed to himself again and again. Then he clutched at clumps of dry grass and tossed them in the air. (When I told him that spruce cones are only food for squirrels, if he didn’t understand he at least obligingly enjoyed them without eating them.)

The ravens are calling. I learned yesterday that crows don’t stay here through the winter, and that the raven’s tail is pointed while the crow’s tail is flat. I have seen them flying, all black but for the strand of nest material they are bringing home.

All these animals (and insects) make their homes anew in the spring. Maybe they return to the same tree or nest, but still they are rebuilding, reinforcing. Perhaps we miss the newness and renewal of this season by staying inside our same old houses and apartments, only finally packing up the Christmas decorations in preparation for the chicks and bunnies of Easter.

But a good ten minute meditation in the sun on someone’s back deck makes up some of the difference. Out in the hum and chirp and caw of spring all the old wonder and appreciation comes back, like a long-frozen mother tongue. We respond to the sudden, cool wind with a shiver, to the warbling bird with a cocked head, to the wonderfully bright sun with a squint. We pick up spruce cones, we touch the dry grasses and see the new life pushing up beneath them, we delight in the day, in the earth and the sky, in spring.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux