Don't Let it Pass Unnoticed

Spring is here.  In case you hadn't noticed, the birds have returned.  They twitter and chirrup and flutter about in my back yard, hop-hop-hopping from one corner to another, fluttering up unexpectedly.  Over the top of the fence they go and down again like a clean sheet blown from the clothesline to land on the neighbor's lawn.  Or, hadn't you noticed?

The forsythia, dogwood, tulip tree, privet, tulips, crocus, daffodils, and redbuds are brilliant along house fronts and curbs, ringing around the bases of trees and adorning walkways.  I am anxious to take off my shoes and feel the grass underfoot again, soft and tender and cool; I want to walk across it in a slow zigzag and then loop around the tree, feeling the bark rough and wonderful under my hand.

I want to breathe it in, drink it up, give myself over to its luxury.  I envy my little dog - she is so close to it all.  The ant hill I may trample is not beneath her notice; she can chase a squirrel and not look a bit silly; she can stick her nose down into the grass to discover its scent and register the fragrance of the dirt.  She can taste the rainwater that's collected in a low spot on the walkway without fear.

But, I must find my own ways to mark the season.  To admire it, embrace it, celebrate it.  I have no intention of letting a bit of it pass unnoticed.  Spring is a poem sprung to life, God's coloring book, a grace note in the orchestration of seasons.  It is feathers and fancy and freedom and finery.  It is lace and luxury and lingering and love.  Oh, let it be spring!

The Season of Poetry

Lately I've been wanting more of everything and that troubles me.  I want my plate to be more full at mealtime.  I want the food to be more flavorful.  I want to be intrigued by something, stirred by something, moved to act.  To see something pretty and rare, hear something I've never heard before, savor a rich, complex flavor.  But that wouldn't be enough.  I want to gorge myself on life.  Yet, I'm barely sampling it.  Why is that?

In this season, this early spring, the signs are all around.  Transformation.  Newness.  Life.  But, my mind still wears its thick winter fleece and my senses are dulled by lack of input.  Too many contented nights by the fire.  Too many pleasant little reads.  Too much of the comfortable.

I hate to invite trouble, but sometimes I wonder if I confuse complacency with contentment.  And, if I do, I want to know it right now; because the last thing I want to be is complacent.  I want to be alive, in the moment, alert.  The imagination must be fed.

I need to shake off winter's hibernation and get out of the cave that is my brain.  Listen again to Leaves of Grass with its jazzy accompaniment; read it.  I think I understand more of Whitman now than I ever did before.  Let it be the season of poetry!

Waiting for Rejuvination

There's an old song with the line, "They say it's spring that's made me daft as a daisy".  I'm feeling pretty daft these days.  Daft and so tired!  I don't know if I'm so inflexible that the time change is still throwing me or if it's that over Spring Break I slept in until 8:30 and now am getting up at 6:00 again.  At any rate, I'm pretty much a zombie.  I'm waiting for rejuvination.

Tomorrow is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter.  The season reminds us of the wonderful reality of resurrection, of new life.  I'm grateful for that reality.

It's funny how my mind has been so busy lately and yet I am having such a hard time writing.  I want to so much I can taste it, but I sit down and. . . nothing.  Or at least too little to really work with.  I feel like McGee on NCIS when he wouldn't own up to his (dare I say it?) writer's block.  I remember I had this problem before.  It was after I knew Stained Glass Theatre was going to do my play Welcome to Joe's.  There was this huge gap of two years between the time they accepted the script and the time they produced it.  I was so anxious about seeing Joe's happen that I wasn't very productive on anything else.  Then, as soon as Joe's closed I dashed of Related Spaces in nothing flat!  After Related Spaces played, I wrote No Penalty.  After No Penalty was published I finished the one that's setting at Avalon now.  In those times of waiting, I find that's all I seem to be able to do.  I guess it's that wish for life to be in tidy packages.  One project completed before another is begun.  It doesn't work that way.  I've got to pull my head out of the fog and get busy!

Spring is supposed to be the most romantic season.  I'm looking forward to some of  my favorite springy things to rejuvinate the romantic in me.  Maybe you could try these, too!

1.  Eat breakfast outside.  Bruce and I eat on the porch when it's light enough and warm enough because we can watch walkers and dog walkers go by.  We always laugh that people are saying, "Look!  They're eating on the porch!  Weird."
2.  Fill the birdbath and watch for visitors of the feathered variety.
3.  Do what my editor Chelsea did:  wear yellow to celebrate spring!
4.  Sip a glass of iced tea with lemon and mint.
5.  Read some Nikki Giovanni poetry.  It's fun.
6.  If you live near a college campus, walk on over and stroll around.  Take in the sights and sounds:  frisbee on the lawn, touch football in the stadium, bicycles on the brick bike paths, music drifting out of open dorm windows, bulletin boards announcing auditions for summer theatre productions, the fountains.
7.  Paint your toenails - but not if you're a man, please!
8.  Pick out one bird's song and listen for it every day near the same time.  We have one around here that I call "Our Little Singer".  I can never find him, but his song is quite distinct.  I think I figured out what kind he was last year, but have forgotten since.  He sings, "Oh, sweet Canada, Canada, Canada."
9.  Get your bird books off the shelf and figure out what kinds of birds are visiting and singing all around you.
10. Breathe deeply (if your allergies allow it) - take in the scents of lilac and fresh green growing things!

Cheers to you and cheers to spring!
Shellie