Sproing!

I know I’ve noticed it slowly edging its way into my peripherals for a few weeks, but within the past few days, my brain finally caught up with my eyes and showed me what I hadn’t been paying attention to. I see it in my yard, in my neighbors’ yards, on my drive to and from work, just about everywhere. The pinks and the whites and the purples and the yellows and the dull reds told me that spring was coming.

The way I saw it, it was already here. The nodding yellow daffodils are just outside my fence, a group of them standing there like a gathering crowd at the scene of an accident, hint that spring is here. The white Bradford Pear trees that look so pretty, yet smell so bad, and seem to be everywhere, tell me that spring is here. The warmer temperatures, the ever-thickening tufts of grass popping up in my yard, and the certain shorts-and-sandals wearing students at UTC, all tell me that spring is here. Even before the calendar stated that it was spring, I knew it was here. And pretty soon, the sounds of “Play Ball!” will definitely indicate that, yes indeed, spring is here.

Dormancy wakes up to activity. The sleep of winter turns into the budding awakening of spring. What seemed to have been dead is thrust into the world anew. The bulbs planted in my “serenity spot” (which is really just a place I planted flowers under some trees, nothing really serene about it, except it is in the shade) have already pushed aside the layer of detritus that cushioned them from freezing temperatures and are stretching up toward the warming sun. Lawnmowers are waking from their winter’s sleep ready to chop and maim and fill the air with the aroma of their presence…mmm…cut grass and gasoline. The trees that have stood silently naked during the bleakness of winter are slowly adorning their latest spring fashions in pastel colors that change to their final greens. Spring is springing forth to make way for summer…sweet, sweet summer.

I am a child of summer. Spring and autumn are my godparents. Winter is an ex in-law that I never seemed to get along with. Spring is really cool. You see, what it does is lay the groundwork for the fun of summer. It is a stepping stone to summer, a gateway season to wean us from the stupor of cold and build up our tolerance to the coming heat. Trees fill out to create shade from the sun; grass thickens to tickle the toes and pad the feet; lakes and rivers become places to float and frolic and swim in. But that is jumping ahead too far…patience, I must have.

Spring is normally the start of something new. Not all things are new. The bulbs under the ground are the same bulbs; the trees are the same trees; the grass is the same grass. The only newness of these things is the life reawakening in them. I guess you can say that nothing is really new. It’s all been done before. Maybe not in your yard or in your life, but somewhere it has happened already. I have a very small patch of monkey grass that I am trying to spread. I brought this patch with me from my old house, where the growth of monkey grass was thick and easy to propagate. Mostly all of it came from a patch from my neighbor’s property. It took years, but eventually, all my large trees had rings around them, and the flower gardens were bordered too. I had to start all over again over here. In the nearly three years that I have lived in my new place, my small patch has only grown maybe twice its size. But I am being patient. My bulbs that I transplanted have not failed me. They have spread more than I had imagined! The monkey grass and the bulbs are a little piece of my old place and life that hopefully will live on for a long time.

Some things don’t emerge anew when the season changed. My cactus (God rest its soul!) didn’t make it through the winter. I had 3 Hostas that I had transplanted from pots from my old house. Only 2 survived the transplant. It looks like only one is left now. Could be that the other one just hasn’t poked out of the ground yet? We will see.

Also, some things don’t even make it to spring. When the March Lion roared its way through a few weeks ago, I lost a tree. It fell and crunched a fence, but no other damage was done. I’m still trying to clean up after that mess. There are limbs all over the yard, not just from that tree, but from others that were blown down in that same storm’s display of aggression. There’s a lot to do before I can mow my yard. But I know that it will look so good when it is cleaned and mowed. Nothing beats a pretty yard!

Something that is new has to do with where I work. An opportunity is before me. More responsibility and growth is before me. I’m not going to talk about what it is just yet, but it is something I’ve wanted for a while and it is a good thing. Much thought and many hours dissecting the pros and cons have been spent in this decision. Soon!

Here’s to hoping that this spring brings happiness and growth to many. I need it, and I know lots of others who need it. We need the hope. We need the blessing of a rebirth and emergence as a new plant, ready for blossoming and the blessed beauty of its flower and the nourishment of any fruit that grows.

Hmm…Fruit. That reminds me. I want a garden this year…