"Spring's Return"

 Today, despite being unseasonably cold, marks the first full day of spring. Its return is always a time to rejoice. In Connecticut, we have special reasons to celebrate, as yesterday the State took further steps toward normalcy.

 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Essay from Essex

“Spring’s Return”

March 20, 2021

 

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.”

                                                                                                                The Wilderness World of John Muir, 1954

                                                                                                                Edited by Edwin Way Teale

 

In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel, The Secret Garden, twelve-year-old Colin Craven, who has been bed-ridden with a spinal injury, looks up from his wheelchair: “’Is the spring coming?’ he asked. ‘What is it like?’ ‘It is the sun shining on the rain and rain falling on the sunshine,’” answers his twelve-year-old cousin Mary Lennox. In Anna Karina, Leo Tolstoy, wrote, “Spring is the time of plans and projects” – a message heeded by gardeners everywhere. Spring carries us from March winds, through April’s rains, to May’s buds and June’s flowers – from seeded furrows to blossoming borders. In the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox is today, when the sun, on its northward journey, crosses the celestial equator.

 

In early spring, weather is uncertain. When I was growing up, a New Hampshire slogan proclaimed March skiing to be the season’s best. A favorite memory is skiing shirtless on a warm afternoon in late March – getting high on sun and snow. Freezing nights and warm days mean Sugar Maples’ sap is running, providing one of nature’s most delicious products. Changing temperatures are endemic to spring. At the New England Society’s annual dinner in New York on December 22, 1876, Mark Twain spoke: “In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours.” For us, it is common to see temperatures vary by thirty degrees and more in a day. 

 

It is spring’s return, its promise of rebirth, from cold winters to warm summers, that makes the season, like Christ’s resurrection, seem magical.  Yet it is real, and its progress is inexorable. E.B. White, in Points of My Compass, wrote, “No matter what changes take place in the world, or in me, nothing ever seems to disturb the face of spring.” Following the five-day battle for Mount Belvedere in Italy’s Northern Apennines, in which 213 soldiers of the 10^th Mountain Division were killed, my father wrote my mother. Instead of death, he wrote of life: “There were crocuses in bloom on Mt. Belvedere and the view was beautiful, both day and night, a strange setting for a battle.” In Tolkien’s The Return of the King, it was the end of winter when Frodo Baggins, accompanied by Gandalf, returned to the Shire, after seventeen years of war: “Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It’ll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields…and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?” I do. I remember picking strawberries in June, in a field next to the abandoned “Brick House,” about a half mile from our home. They hid their red faces beneath green leaves, but when found their taste, mingled with the odor of fresh meadow grass, was sweeter than anything store-bought. 

 

Springtime is for lovers, and it is not just for humans. All animal and plant life heed nature’s call. A quote attributed to Sitting Bull is a reminder of love’s universality: “Behold my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love.” Wakened from long winter nights, hibernating animals exit lairs, searching for a mate. Trees bud, and spring flowers test the air. Peepers chirp, squirrels fluff their tails and songbirds sing, while black snakes and turtles silently reappear, smiling prettily, seeking sunlight, ready to couple. 

 

But it is the love of two people that poets and playwrights celebrate: “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson in “Locksley Hall.” Proteus speaks In Act I of Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen from Verona: 

 

“O, how this spring of love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day,

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

And by and by a cloud takes all away.”

 

The cloud dissipates; he and Julia wed. As did Caroline and I, on an April afternoon in 1964.

 

Perhaps it is age, but Toby Keith’s song, “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” strikes a chord: “Don’t let the old man in; get up and go outside.” Keeping the old man at a distance, we do go outdoors. The air is fresh and cool. As my wife and I walk past a pond where a beaver has been busy, across the golf course and on trails through woods and fields, life stirs. Returning birds occupy old nests or build new ones. Hawks circle, looking for field mice blinded by the sunlight. Eight days ago, we saw our first frog of the year and then our first turtle and heard our first peepers. I was reminded of when my mother would offer a nickel to the first of her children to see a turtle each spring. I put out my hand, but she wasn’t there.

 

Nevertheless, I rejoice at spring’s return.