Spring Abounds
Minnesota is the theater of seasons; each season is its own feature movie and unique.The writer of the script for each season is creative beyond belief but not immune to writer’s block.
My best estimate is that we have about three takes of spring each year. This reliable event is an opportunity for a news story of how the snowplows have been removed from the highway trucks but can quickly be mounted on the eve of a storm. These false springs are like an argument about whether to start on the “go” or start on the “3” of “1,2,3,go!” The spring of 2025 seems to be about average for false starts. False or not, it gives me a chance to leave my stocking hat in the pickup.
I think I hit a good nerve last week when I posted the identification from my Merlin bird app. The app uses my phone's microphone to identify a bird based on its song. In this case, it was a robin. I couldn’t see the robin so I just took a screen shot of the identification and posted it to social media; many people responded with pictures and sightings. This tells me that the arrival of the robin is important to many people and I suspect it is because they are a sign of spring.
Our relationship with the land changes with each season, the spring transition seems to me to be the most hopeful. It’s almost like a romantic relationship. Summer is the time of work and greatest growth, fall is a time of harvest and reflection and winter is a time of dormancy or death. Spring is that fun time of awakening and exciting potential for growth. It’s a sweet time when all that planning for a garden or landscaping is about to hit the ground running and the reality of just how much work it will be lies yet dormant. I used to see snow well into May when I was a kid. Shaded areas and deep ditches held drifts that reminded me to be thankful for release from winter. Lately, a lasting spring season arrives with the flip of a switch and doesn’t last that long. Spring is like one of those waiting rooms with only three chairs that are never full, you barely begin reading a magazine and it’s time to mow the lawn. There’s not even enough time to pick up branches before you start the mower.
My mom always planted a huge garden in the spring. It was a tradition I enjoyed by avoiding it as much as possible as I had aviation magazines to read. Now I think about it and consider how the home-canned product that grew just beyond the trees was almost a reminder of the spring that had created it. Spring is a time of creation and a good time to stretch and consider the drifts have come and are almost gone and that time is short for our use. Go read the book, buy the ticket for the show or start the romancemetaphors abound for your choosing. It is now spring.
