On a Saturday

I have never been a fan of Spring, frankly. In my adolescence there were about five years that something tragic happened between Valentine's Day and Easter. As I grew up, I watched Spring come around the corner and felt an overwhelming desire to run for cover. This is the season that marks the anniversary of my parents gory divorce, my miscarriage, a cousin's suicide, facing my weight issues, failed relationships, and tragic loss.  Failure and depression. Spring was not about bunnies and robin nests, flowers and butterflies, but a harbinger of sorrow. I learned to hate Spring. I hated it all. From pastel-painted eggs to yellow tulips. Even the sunshine became my enemy.  It was all one prettily wrapped package that when opened exploded in my hands. 

I resented recovering from the coziness of minty, frosty, sparkly Winter, to adjust to the aloof and "diva" attitude of spring. I hated the tank tops, the shorts, the moody weather, the longer days. I waited impatiently for June when, according to my math, Summer, with his dreadlocks and tie die T-shirts, smelling of coconut sunscreen and barbecues, was a friend with whom I would blare Bob Marley and muddle some fresh mint for mojitos.  But in our part of the world, Spring means rain, and long dark days inside. It means you know that worms squish and slugs crunch. Spring is the color of moss and mold. It's the sound of sloshing through puddles and windshield wipers scraping across the glass. It's the smell of decay. This time last year I was immersed in the deepest of depressions that was as lonely as it was dark. 

So I admit I tremble when this fine-tuned philosophy surfaces altered this year. I have been guarded against the black doors of depression. I've had my bottle of St. John's Wort ready since New Year's Day. I've given my dirty looks to all manikins in the mall displaying shades of pink, mint green, sky blue, and butter yellow. I've kept busy. Too busy. I'm looking for a week off, actually. But it's different this year. I'm different. Something is happening. 

Aaron stumbled quite innocently upon a wonderful park south of our home.  It's only around the corner from us nestled in a lovely neighborhood .  The park has a serpentine paved trail that loops around the children's toys, to a shallow valley field that is fringed in poplars, firs, old growth oak, and aspens, with earthen foot trails meandering throughout.  Twice I have spotted the sunshine peaking from behind the clouds and I have rushed the boys to this secret park.  AJ rides his Big Wheel down the hill to the toys where little R is playing, and I stroll behind them both, once even laying on the warm grass dried by a firm, warm breeze, and watched--for the first time in at least twenty years--the clouds change shape in the high winds in the sky. 

Today, a cool but clear Saturday, we started off at the pool, then after lunch and nap, headed to our little secret wooded park.  I heard the strangest noise there, bubbling up from my own mouth.  Laughter.  It startled me.  I glared at a robin singing on nearby branch, for good anti-spring measure.  How could I not relish the sight of my boys in the labyrinth of trails under the trees?  It was a genuine laugh, and although alarmed, something was released.  And feeling lighter and freer than I have ever on a sunny spring day, I watched my boys.  Collecting all that I could on this moment, this bright spring day in their lives.

AJ has my vivid and overactive imagination.  He saw an arrangement of moss covered boulders and sitting squarely on one that resembled an arm chair, used a small bit of soggy bark as a remote to change the channel of the TV boulder in front of him.  I remember doing the exact same thing on a pile of lumber on my grandparents' farm.  I had a house in the pile.  I had a living room, steps down to a basement, steps up to a bedroom and haunted attic.  Seeing this in him warmed me through. 

R was a real outdoors man, running into the undergrowth, hiking far (too far) ahead of us as scout, picking up impressive sticks and whacking them against the rocks, trees, or ferns.  He's accoutstically sensitive like his father, and listens to the noise he created with keen ears and unblinking eyes.  He offered to taste test everything he found, as a toddler, that is really the only real test of something's worth, I suppose.  He loves nature and activity, and he encouraged his big brother to find the fun in the woods.  And Aaron and I sat back and watched, smiling.  Then I look to him and I see this man whom I've been with for 16 years, and marvel at how deeply I respect him and love him, as we stand with linked arms, watching our young boys play.

Persephone has lifted her sleepy head and touched the earth with the tiniest green hints of new buds and regrowth. Winter with his burly beard is finally stepping off the stage and Spring, dawned in flowing green gowns, inhales deeply before releasing a most tender soprano chanson. This is the inhale. The world smells like wet earth, feels like dewy grass, sounds like birdsong, and carries with it an impression of hope and rebirth.  

I smiled, and laughed at the sight of them, our feral, noisy boys boys barking like puppies in a field on a cool spring day, frolicing in the light.   And I wondered if, after all these years, Spring and I were finally making peace.