Spring

Thing I like best about spring is that you can hear it. The dripping of snow melt off the roof. The birds, the little ones, the ones that go away and come back, chirping in the still barren trees. The wind, not howling like sometimes in the winter but just that coming-on sound, that what’s next sound, same as tires on the highway. And my favorite….the rivers, the creeks. Water uncovered, unlocked, rushing. Gurgling over stone, meeting mud and grass.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the stillness of winter, the quiet. And I know that without that, I wouldn’t throw my doors open and listen to spring the way I do. And I guess that’s just it, what I’ve been noticing lately, same as the sages will tell you. You just can’t have one without the other. There’d be no laughter and joy without its opposite. Right?

I just wish that I could embrace pain the same as I embrace winter, knowing that around the next bend joy awaits same as spring. Just think about that. Throw open your doors and think about how without the goddamn short dark days, we wouldn’t know these long easy days of spring.