SPRINGING

The other day I took my mother-in-law for a doctor’s appointment.  In a few months this lady will celebrate her 99^th birthday, although if you met her at the grocery store or the post office you would not guess that she is that old.  I only mention her age to point out how many springs she has welcomed in her life ... and how even after nearly a century’s worth the thrill has not worn off.

Her very words as we left the clinic were “Just smell that air!  Doesn’t it smell good?”  I agreed whole-heartedly; it sure did.  March doesn’t look all that pretty with its dirty snow and muddy yards, but the air hints at warmth, and awakening, and potential.  Soon there will be geese flying overhead, gophers popping up in the ditches, robins looking for nest construction materials: in this symphony of prairie life we are hearing the first soft notes of rebirth.

Google’s morning meme today – the legal First Day of Spring – drilled down into all kinds of technical information on what that means.  Today is also called the Vernal Equinox – vernal for ‘spring’ and ‘equinox’ because today there are ‘equal’ parts of daylight and darkness.  I had known that part, but had not realized that this is true for the whole planet, from the Arctic to the Antarctic and all latitudes in between.  That’s kind of cool.  Today is also when the sun’s center crosses Earth’s celestial equator from south to north due to the wobble of our axis which is the whole reason we get seasons to begin with. 

Okay, enough with the nerd stuff – I promise there will be no quiz on this.  I just thought I would give the scientific explanation of what’s going on.

Much more importantly is how we respond.  Not on the intellectual level, although of course farmers are finalizing their seeding plans and home owners are making sure their sump pumps are set up and ready to roll, but on the spiritual level – where our spirits are lifted by warmth, our mood brightened by the sunshine, our souls rejuvenated with fresh air – the kind that doesn’t hurt our faces.

There are so many things on my ‘to do’ list! 

I can’t wait to hang laundry out on the clothes line to dry!  I love that no fossil fuels are being burned.  I love that I’m saving money as well as the planet.  And I love love love the smell Mother Nature permeates those clothes with.  Win.  Win.  Win.

The dog and I are very excited about going for real walks down a real road, out in the fresh air and sunshine.  The winter is too cold and slippery for that to happen, and right now the muddy roads hold me back, but soon, very soon, this going to happen.

There are already green blades of grass where the sun has warmed up small nooks and crannies of soil.  Nothing repairs the freezer burn on the human psyche like the colour green.  Dandelions will soon follow; they are much easier to tolerate when they are the only flowers out there.

I’m even looking forward to cleaning up the ‘dog residue’ scattered all over the yard.  Whatever was left over from last fall’s hunting season was gifted to the dog.  He and his buddy have spent the winter chewing on these bones, displaying their trophies on the front lawn, and burying their precious treasures.  Between these lawnmower hazards and the usual stinky stuff dogs leave behind, I will have a full day’s job cleaning up.  It’s not a very nice job but an entire day of worthwhile work, as long as it’s outdoors, is something I look forward to.

Best of all, though, is when it’s finally dry enough and warm enough to go out and play in the dirt.  It’s what we all live for.

I guess I think of ‘Spring’ not as a noun, but as a verb.  I have a lot of ‘Springing’ I want to do.  Thank goodness Mother Nature has finally opened that door ....

HOPE AFTER HIBERNATION

I poked my nose outside a while ago.  There was this strange glowing ball in the sky I wanted to take a closer look at.  I only had to step out onto the deck so I decided I could risk doing this little venture in two layers of clothing – unlike the six or seven it would have needed two weeks ago.

Much to my surprise, once I had cleared the shadow of the roof awning, there was this curious sensation.  It was vaguely familiar.  Wherever the light touched my skin, and even through my clothing, I felt ... I think the word is ‘warm’.  I stretched out my arms and lifted my face to the light.  Yes, that definitely felt ... warm.  It had been so long I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a fantasy.

Feeling no need to hurry back inside this time, before hypothermia set in, I took the time to look around.  The place needed some work: dog bones littered the deck, blankets used for a hay ride on Boxing Day were strewn over the wicker chairs, a derelict Christmas tree leaned against the edge of the deck accompanied by a couple shovels.  Obviously it had been too cold to deal with any of this stuff for months.  The barbeque also was out of place – the result of my desire to use it one night last week.  I had dared the extremes for a bbq steak, but I had to pull it out of the wind to get enough heat built up for cooking.

It’s been quite the long haul, this winter has.

This afternoon though, it felt different.  I stood there, mere runners on my feet and a simple bunnyhug for a jacket, and yet I was unworried about losing body parts to frost bite.  How long has it been since I was afforded such luxury, I wondered?

The dog eyed me suspiciously – what was I up to?  Was I going to feed him?  Was I going to give him grief over hauling that deer hide up to the house?  Or, was he weighing the odds of me remembering what it was like to go for an actual down-the-road walk?  He gave his tail a tentative, half-hearted wag and waited for further cues from my body language.  Can’t say he looked all that surprised when I dusted off a cushion and sat down in my favourite deck chair.  Can’t say he looked all that disappointed either.  He was just happy to have one of his humans outside with him.  We spend lots of hours out on this deck together surveying our kingdom – he does it year round, I keep my surveying to the months with no snow.

On a day like today, with the warmth seeping into both body and mind, a tiny flame of hope was ignited.  Or maybe it was inspiration .  Or possibly an awakening of passions and possibilities.  An almost atrophied part of my brain kicked into gear.  What was I going to plant this year?

Which flowers would attract the most hummingbirds?  Was I going for a certain colour scheme this summer?  What would I fill my big new flower bed with?  How had the strawberries weathered the winter?  So glad we bedded everything down with straw last fall!  Had the deer left the apple trees alone?  How long would it be before we could eat fresh asparagus? 

The thoughts, once started, spilled through my brain.

Over in the quonset sits an almost finished hobby greenhouse.  A few nights ago I spent all my insomniac hours virtually towing it around the yard looking for the perfect place for it.  It couldn’t be put down in our flood plain.  It had to be close to both a power and water source and somewhere that was full sun but out of the wind.  I think I have it figured out ... now to get it there! 

Is this how a bear feels when it staggers out of hibernation, I wondered?  Disoriented and unfocussed until the sunshine seeps in and reminds it of who it is and what it wants?

By this time the afternoon sun was leaning into the west.  Almost suppertime.  It occurred to me that the reason most bears wake up is because they’re hungry.  It was time to leave my sunbeam and go take care of job. 

But the weatherman says that tomorrow is going to be a good deck sitting day too ....

MY HAPPY PLACE

There was a woman sitting at the next table to us, eating alone, playing on her phone from time to time, and it occurred to me several times during our three hour lunch, was she listening in on this convoluted, caring, crazy conversation my friend and I were having?  And if so, what was she thinking?  Was she shocked at some of the topics we covered?  Did she identify with some of our life observations?  Did she wish she was seated somewhere else?  And if so, was that farther away, or right at our table so she could join in?

My friend and I try to meet for lunch to ‘catch up’ once or twice a year.  We live over a hundred miles apart and even though we’re both retired we still lead busy lives, it isn’t as easy to get together as one would think.  This date we had on Friday was almost a full year since the last time and we both made a vow not to let it go that long again.  We absolutely do each other a world of good.

Long before we met through our work lives our personal lives had taken very similar paths.  We both married very young and found ourselves as single moms in our early twenties.  We responded to this Life curveball with the same kind of determination born of devastation; we stepped up to the plate and provided for our kids and rebuilt our lives.  We both remarried and had more kids but that kind of impact on our life experience was and is still indelible. 

I have other friends, some with more experience and some with less.  All of them contribute to who I am, but this friend and me?  Well, I guess we are just on the same page.  We understand the same things the same way.  That’s not to say that our conversations are dull - just ask the gal at the next table to us.  We talked and laughed for three straight hours.  The waitress nearly gave up on us; it took us half an hour to remember we needed to order food.   

Imagine!  Women forgetting to order food.

Our range of topics was all over the place.  What were our plans for the week?  The summer?  The year?  How were our families doing?  We touched on health issues, and home life.  There were memories of our work years and the people we knew in common.  We talked of the long term plans one has to make in retirement to make sure that the money lasts as long as we do.  We also spoke of the things that bring us dissatisfaction and grief, and yet after a short pause in the conversation she gestured to the full dining room around us and said “Look at this.  Women need women.”  She was right; the tables were full, and probably 90% of the crowd was female.  To the casual observer the place was a restaurant, but within its walls there were countless therapy taking place.  Coffee and confessions.  Cream soup and condolences.  Sandwiches and spirit lifting.  Lemon pie and laughter.

Time ticked by on us.  About the two and a quarter hour mark, when we both knew we would have to wrap up our visit soon, I was reminded of a presentation we had been a part of during our work days.  It had been aimed at helping us deal with stress and encouraged us all to identify our personal ‘happy place’ so that when the going got tough on any given day we had a place to retreat to, even if only in our imaginations.

I smiled across the table and said “This is my happy place.”  She knew exactly what I meant.

It’s not that it’s my only happy place.  I also love my yard and gardens.  I love the time I spend with my grandchildren and I have some actual blood related sisters whom I cherish dearly.  In fact, my life is full of blessings.

But, as I drove home later that day - my soul up-lifted, my heart light and happy, my consciousness reset to a fresh level of possibilities - that as far as happy places go, there was no doubt that lunch with this friend was a ten out of ten.