I love the change of seasons. It’s not that I couldn’t handle California, Arizona or Florida lifestyles. I would miss the sweet touch of a frozen wind across my face or a summer thunderstorm whipping dust into mini-cyclones.
Rain, pitter-pattering down on the roof to torrential downpours flooding streets and the sun-slanted warmth of fall would be lost.
What is Spring Fever without the Spring?
Most people recognize and welcome spring, not because of the beauty it brings or Darwin’s constant battles, but because they feel new and renewed; that somehow old and weary bodies beaten by winter’s whip can somehow be magically re-born.
I use the spring to let loose my death grip on my curmudgeonly coat and dip my fingers into magic dirt and grow my own crop of weeds and stones. I try and check, no, re-direct my wit away from sarcastic barbs to immaculate words.
Luckily, this warm, bubbly feeling only lasts about a minute or two. Are you kidding me? Snap out of it Marc!
Pretty soon, we’ll all be complaining about the rain, instead of thinking of the crops or the farmers. Summer comes and brings a litany of curses as sweat drips down our necks and tickles annoyingly on a crooked dribble down the back of our shirts. We’re willing to complain, as long as someone else solves the problems we’ve created.
The Red Ozone warning days won’t make you drive less or take mass transit. Half of us don’t even think there’s such a thing AS climate change. People will still try to drive cars through rain-swollen streams, or dash madly on ice—covered roads.
Spring is being with your kids, your family, not about how much you spend or where you spend it. My wife and I spend more time than we’d like telling our children what they can’t have and why then is necessary. And they don’t seem to appreciate how much they have compared to so many people in the world. We won’t give up and we certainly won’t give in.
Once I see something I plant growing and feel warm enough to wear shorts, maybe some of my optimistic pessimism might wane. (I’ve always wanted to use wane in a sentence.) I like to see the bees dance around my garden. The bitter tang of pool chlorine brings tears to my eyes, both literally and figuratively.
I love watching my children leap and run and cavort (Yippee. Got cavort in too!) I love the things that matter, although I’m not sure I always recognize them until after the fact.
I don’t know about you, but I feel rejuvenated and refreshed already.
Have you been watching the news lately? We’ve got at least two wars going, Russian incursion into a sovereign state, terrorism, drought in two major fruit and vegetable growing states, a government that can’t agree on what soap to use in the Congressional bathroom, and a growing economy, is great for us, but horrid for the rest of the world.
I’ll take our strong economy; we go to France this summer and I can use a strong dollar.
The dollar can weaken mid-July, thank you.