Signs of spring
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 4:32PM 
It is with a great ferocity that I am greeting the spring this year. The winter seemed particularly long and dim. Mine may even have been a two-year winter.
Even on a day like today with rain sprinkling down slowly on us all, I just want to be outside. Walking the streets, I am unlocked.
This spring my heart is gathering with the sunshine as if we two are long-distance loves finally reunited. We have forgotten all flaws and hurts. Together again, we are consumed with remembering each other. The rest of the world slips away. It is just the two of us and everything is perfect.
There is a favorite day with my preschool class each year. It is the day when we trudge through whatever horrible early March weather is being offered to us on a search for the first signs of spring. The children are bundled in their layers, eyes barely peaking out from the wrappings. They get confused because when we step outside, instead of heading east into the park, we turn toward the west and cross the street into the nearby apartment complex where the grounds people faithfully planted bulbs in the fall.
A year ago on this day there were still inches of snow on the ground and the sprouts peaked out from the snowy drifts triumphant. The children responded appropriately. Upon seeing the green showing through the snow, they began to rejoice, jumping and spinning, dancing and running wild with excitement.
This year’s group got quiet at the sight of the signs of a coming spring. They crouched low and their pudgy fingers collectively reached out to touch. Their world is so much in the present, I could tell they had forgotten that there is green.
I had forgotten too. The flowers blossoming on the pear tree outside of this window and the leaves pushing out of buds on the trees in the park, these are the sweet, soft colors of the spring. They will be with us for only a moment. I want to see them and be with them and grow silent in their presence. I too want my pudgy fingers to reach them, touch them, remember them.
As we come to the end of this March, it is fierce. In like a lamb. Out like a lion.
This post is part of Steady Mom’s 30 Minute Blogging Challenge. If you are a blogger, why don’t you give her Tuesday carnival a try? It is a great way to get a midweek post up without ignoring your other responsibilities… for more than 30 minutes anyway. This post, start to finish? 28 minutes!
Reader Comments (4)
you are so beautiful and eloquent my friend.
I too am hvin that love affair with sunshine-I took her FOR GRANTED in AZ (I am now in Germany)!
BTW. I saw that you are reading Ruth Reichl-Comfort me with apples- I love all her work!
What a day to read this. It warms my heart, even as I come inside... chilled to the bone from the wind and rain. Thanks Emily!
Loved your description of the children discovering green again. :)