Spring, Fully

yellow and shadow

at the top

It happens every year, this crazy stretch of spring, with its wind and mustard flowers and Kodachrome skies. I don't know why it still takes me by surprise, but there is something astonishing and over-the-top about it. Psychedelic but without the drugs.

I like the way Rilke put it: Everything is blooming most recklessly. If it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of night.

It's an interesting time of life too, and I suppose all times of life are interesting, but there is something about now that gets my full attention. For years so many of us kept our heads down–raising kids, working full-time, tending to the busy-ness we thought would never end–and suddenly we've come through that particular tunnel and we're looking around and rediscovering what's here. This includes old friendships made new again, often in the course of walks we do together.

As you may have surmised, going outside is my therapy. I keep falling in love with the world, and though it's accompanied by anxiety about the fate of the planet and what we can do about it, there's something nourishing and hopeful about this love. It renews us, and it never lets us down. My bicycle is still my trusty steed, but hiking with friends in this enchanted land has become a special source of joy.

Just yesterday as I began a walk I stopped at the garage to get a hiking pole, and I spied a familiar garment in a pile of rags on Monte's work bench: it was an old torn pair of green leggings that had belonged to a little girl who lived with us once upon a time. There was something poignant about it. I held them up in front of me and couldn't believe how tiny they were. I thought of taking a picture and sending it to my daughter and imagined her rolling her eyes, declaring it creepy.

I moved on. I stepped into the sunlight.  I admired the tall sycamore tree that was once a twig that my little girl used to water, bucket by bucket, carried from the creek, maybe while wearing green leggings. I looked across the road toward those yellow hills.