Morning Has Broken
Suddenly, it’s springtime.
It’s not the spring I remember from back home. Back home I would never use the word spring while chunks of ice were still clinging to the curbs or while I still had to wear a full-fledged coat outdoors, but it just feels like spring. February isn’t over yet. It might snow again. But today…today is good enough.
Spring reminds me of visiting the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, freezing in a tent overnight while the temperature dropped and sweating under the hot Carolina sun when I woke up. Wandering around the hills from stage to stage, picking up a hoop for the first time, trying everything from fried alligator to vegetarian dishes I wouldn’t have touched at home, dancing all night long to Holy Ghost Tent Revival and Donna the Buffalo. Four days that felt like four years.
It reminds me of high school, stopping at the beach on the way home from school and wading knee-deep into the water, even though it was still freezing. The sun would warm you enough and once you got used to the temperature, it didn’t feel cold anymore.
Spring is riding a bicycle for the first time after weeks of wind and nor’easters, the first trip to the deli that had been closed all winter and the first scoop of ice cream that won’t yet get warm enough to melt while you walk home. It’s uncovering the hot tubs and cleaning the pools, making plans for summer.
It makes me restless. Excited. Nervous.
This morning, for what I think might have been the first time in my life that I really took note, I watched a flock of birds migrating north. They were coming back. The warm weather of the south was no longer needed, they could return home.
It might snow again. It’s entirely possible. I’ve learned that about living in Wisconsin, the winter weather will stick around as long as it feels like, overstretching it’s welcome. That’s fine with me. I still haven’t been sledding or built a snow man. I’d appreciate the extra opportunity.
But in the mean time, I’m going to roll my windows down and listen to some Carolina folk music.
Sure, it’s a little cold out still. But Spring is Spring. It doesn’t matter where you are.
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