Ode to Spring

Spring is my favorite season. It always has been.

When I was a child, spring started, in my opinion, in February, when the wild violets appeared like magic in the little scrap of woods behind our backyard in Tallahassee. My sister Kris and I would make tiny bouquets, and we’d tuck the prettiest, most perfect flowers behind our teddy bears’ ears. Even though our toes would turn bright red with cold, we’d run barefoot through the woods, delighting in buds and fiddleheads, in the subtle signs of change.

In March, we picked loquats wherever we could find them—next to stores, in parking lots, in our neighbors’ yards. We were always hungry. Though I haven’t tasted a loquat in a long time, I remember them well. They were kind of like peaches and kind of like plums and kind of like apricots—pinkish orange and sweet and sour, with jewel-like, shiny seeds in the center. Loquats kept us fueled up for all the running and gathering we needed to do in spring. We were always picking things—harvesting. There was so much to take in, to try to hold close.

March was the best month for making bouquets. We’d pick armloads of flowers from our dad’s George Taber and Formosa azaleas, huge plants that formed magnificent, sweet-smelling pink and purple islands in the sea of henbit, partridgeberry, ponyfoot, and other weeds that made up our lawn. We’d pick dogwoods too, and redbuds and Japanese magnolias. March was the glory time, when the bridal veil bloomed in Rena and Earl’s yard next door and was so white it was almost blinding.

One of my favorite memories of spring is from the year I was 12, when our neighbors the Shaws had a party on their back deck and our family was invited. Not to crack on my rather uptight parents, but a party was a very rare thing for our family. Kris and I were wild with happiness, practically giddy. All the kids at the party were running around, squealing and screaming and playing in the dark. I remember there were candles and Dr. Peppers and barbecue shrimp galore, and the dogwoods glowed in the surrounding woods.

I’m so glad that spring’s wonder never wears off, that you can feel it all your life without any diminishment of its power, without any fading of the excitement. A few years ago, when my mom was 78, she remarked, rejoicing one gorgeous spring day, “Oh, the flowers and just . . . the air! It all gives you such a feeling! It’s like being in love, but way better than that!”

Mom is long divorced and may be a little cynical when it comes to romance, but I think she was onto something that day. The joy of spring is a feeling of love, and it is bigger than love for just one single person. It’s the feeling of being in love with all creation, with the pulse of life, with God. It’s the best feeling I can think of.