Segue

Seque

The transition from winter to spring starts slowly in my part of the world; in southeast Michigan. It has nothing to do with what the calendar says, or with human pronouncements of when Spring officially starts. Depending on how much old man winter wants to keep his frigid hold on us – the change to spring can start any time from early March to mid-April. The ebb and flow of temperatures rises and falls with small advances on most days, and big slips backwards on others.

The start of this transition is usually invisible to humans, as the earth slowly wakes from its hibernation. We are too focused on wanting those warm temperatures and flowers to notice tiny incremental changes. Even before the spring rains start, though, those who watch carefully can see the slow disappearance of snow and ice as it soaks into the still-frozen ground. The local birds such as mourning doves, cardinals, and finches start to sing their mating and territorial songs, and the reappearance of migrants like starlings, robins and red-winged blackbirds add their voices to the mix. After the silence of long winter days, any birdsong is a welcome sound.

When I was a child, I chose to spend a lot of my time alone, outside, and I loved early spring the most. I remember the best days were spent playing in our apple orchard. It was an old orchard, with large apple trees on little hillocks, and the areas of low ditches between them, as the soil had become compacted and sank over the years. Of course, those ditches flooded in the winter, like rows of ice rinks between the islands of trees, and by March the ice would still be there but thinning and showing weaknesses, a variety of bubbles and cracks. I would first admire its beauty and then stomp all over it with a child’s energy - trying to make the changes go faster - as if the breaking of the ice would hasten spring.

As the winds shift from north to south, the feeling of breeze on my bare face changes from a brutal slap to a soft caress. The first day of a truly warm breeze is the best day of the year – with its promise of warmth and growth and renewal.

I also love the smell of those first transitional days from winter into spring. There is a freshness and again – a promise – in that smell that comes at no other time of year. As a child I probably also recognized that this time of year made my gardening father happy, with his seed catalogs piled up beside his favorite chair. Eventually dad’s homemade cold frame would appear on the south side of our garage with trays of freshly planted seeds waiting for the suns warm rays to start growing into the vegetable plants we would place in our garden. Again, promises of things to come.

Depending on the weather and the arrival of the spring rainy season, this dry and icy, end-of-winter feeling is fleeting, and soon mud becomes the focus of the season – grabbing onto our boots and not wanting to give them back, grabbing our vehicles and making grown men curse the changing season. The mud tracks into the house on children, adults, and pets, and becomes a constant cleanup job. The gardening needs to be started in earnest and the time of standing around sniffing wind and listening to birds is replaced by many chores and to-do lists.

So we enjoy those last days of winter and first days of spring. It’s a fleeting segue into our next season.