Spring 2013
By the time you are reading this, Mother Nature has almost ushered out Winter as the official season of the hour. Of course, for most of the Continental United States that means a lot more temperature wise than it does in South Texas. By comparison, the town I was born in, Oak Lawn, Illinois, right outside Chicago, has only had about five to six days of three or more inches of snow this Winter.
And this is a good year for that area as far as “snow days”.
I suppose there is a certain mystique about snow, especially to many living in this paper’s distribution area, who may have never really experienced a real snow storm. Snow is also popular with children, especially around Christmas time, but most people who have had to lash up boots, break out shovels and salt and commute in it will tell you let it snow on Christmas Eve and melt the day after Christmas.
They would rather have Easter (and there has been snow on the ground in Chicago at Easter too, I got the pictures to prove it, brand new tricycle and nowhere to ride it), it usually is at least above thirty-five degrees outside by that time.
But you don’t have to ‘thaw out’ to see the effects of Spring. The flowers and the wildlife really feel the season in their bones and fibers, an instinct older than anyone reading (or writing) this. We connect to it too, which explains why so many people start to feel more alive when Spring comes around.
Instead of the bleak horizon of shorter days and longer nights, comes the promise of warmth and Summer and freedom and being outside in the sun for hours on end. Spring is the beginning of the Baseball season as well, a sport which has been a part of the warm months in this country for well over a hundred years and is the very definition of American.
Children have a stake in this season and its main festivities too as they do in every season. Easter break used to be a great key to being able to tell that Summer was just around the bend along with Summer vacation, which at that time where I was living was two months off of Catholic school that felt more like ten months in a way that only your childhood Summer vacations can.
Personally, I love Spring because ever since the invention of the camera phone I am prone to take pictures and video of anything I come across, especially the nature that was around me. So naturally Spring time was a good time to do so as all the flowers and trees are alive and ready to go.
Spring is a great time to reconnect with nature in more ways than just taking pictures, before the dog days of Summer kick in and it becomes too hot to think, let alone reconnect with anything besides the fan, the A/C and the iced beverage of your choice. It has the beautiful temperatures and mannerisms of early Fall without the colder Winter waiting in the wings.
Although it is recommended to wait for warmer weather for such activities as swimming or sun bathing, Spring has a welcoming briskness all her own; she is the last mix of the times just past, where everything was asleep and chilled to a warmer day where she awakens the world with sunshine and graceful breezes.
However you plan to spend the upcoming Spring, remember to take the time to take a look at the life all around you and remember that even on your darkest of days, everything can be reborn, anyone can awaken like the flowers do, if only they take the time to try.
