How can April already be halfway over?

 

I'm perhaps a little bit too insistent that my favorite season is autumn. It's probably because it's so gloriously moody. But every year, spring reminds me that it is fairly incredible as well, even if in an entirely different way. It's all the newness everywhere, the fresh color of the light, the way tiny leaf buds appear overnight. The return of color.

 

I love spring.

 

But already my hyacinths have bloomed and finished; the dead stalks need to be trimmed back. The daffodils that weren't picked by errant children are just on the other side of perfectly blossomed. And there will only be a few more days to lie under the blossoming plum, looking through pink flowers to the blue, blue sky.

 

This year, somehow, spring is also teaching me that it is about the swiftness of time, the ethereal quality of beauty and newness, the way you have to grab it and see it right now, before it is gone, because it will go. Spring is full of luminosity, and of numinous moments, and the only way I know to hold them for a second is to write them down.

 

Some spring things I've done so far:

 

• Been woken by a storm. Usually it's only rain, and this storm had rain. Thunder, lightning, and hail as well. But what woke me was the wind. It was blowing so hard early Sunday morning that I sat up straight in bed, my heart pounding, feeling like something was trying to get in. My startled waking-up woke up Kendell, so we went and stood by the back door and watched the storm and then, when it calmed back down to just rain, went back to sleep in the soft-again silence.
  
  
  
• Gardened so long I got a sunburn. I am enjoying my yard this year more than I have in many recent ones. I think I used to love gardening so much because my little kids would be playing around me while I worked, and then I fell a little bit out of love because they turned into big kids. I had to learn to love the solitude of it, and the simple satisfaction of physicality. I miss watching my kids while I dig in the dirt (and having them come & help me weed or plant or prune), but I am learning to love it for other reasons.
• Sat on my front porch while the hyacinths bloomed. Is there a lovelier fragrance than hyacinths? Maybe lilacs. I have two big clumps (one pink, one purple) by my front steps, and sitting there on a warm-ish evening while the scent wafts on the wind is one of spring's greatest pleasures for me. I talked to Haley while I did this, and watched Kaleb practice juggling his soccer ball.
• Bought something new. Maybe because my birthday is in April...but it doesn't feel like spring until I buy a new something pretty to wear. In a lucky coincidence, I found a dress I've been eyeing since January, finally on sale, so I snapped it up. I'm saving it for Easter!
  
  
  
• Put on a pair of sandals. There's something liberating about air blowing around your toes again. Plus, they are faster than boots.
• Admired my flowering plum tree. It's still misshapen from that late snow a few years ago. Probably always will be. But lying underneath it when it's flowering, looking up to the blue sky (all in the guise of "stretching" after a run) is one of spring's sweetest pleasures.
• Appreciated spring running. This will happen more than once. You're running along a road you've run 1,000 times before, and you're full of running happiness anyway, but suddenly you realize how beautiful it is, with the thousand shades of new green, and the flowers in the yards, and the blossoms on fruit trees. Even the dandelions add to the color. You get this burst of sheer, sweet, true joy that makes the whole world seem impossibly perfect. Bliss. (Now I can't wait to run past lilac bushes.)
• Planted something new. I've actually only done this part way: I've bought a bunch of astilbe starts. Now I need to finish digging out the devil's flower (aka delphinium, which is a plant I babied and nurtured for years until BAM it took over every single inch of free dirt under my maple tree; I've now dug it out four times but it just keeps coming back) and the other devil's flower (penstemon, which really is magical when it blooms in August—I have the margarita variant, which is a sort of dark purple/electric pink mix, but which is choking out everything else in the planter by the porch,including my favorite iris) before I get them planted. But buying is half the fun anyway!
  
  
  
• Scarfed down spring meals: anything with asparagus. Lemon cake. Blueberry lemon bread. Macaroni salad.

 

 

Stuff I still want to do: 

• Sit on a park bench while Kaleb plays with his friends, just to feel the way the sun warms my scalp. It's so nice not to be cold all the time!
• Hike to where the wildflowers are.
• Get a pedicure. My toenails are looking pretty sad.
• Practice handstands with Kaleb.
• Make a berry cake.
• Go to lunch with Chris to celebate our birthdays.
• Eat breakfast outside. 
• Get some more photos of the kids. Especially Jake!

What are your spring traditions?