You Can Pinch Yourselves—Spring’s Here—Really

MARCH 20, 2004
By GREGORY J. RUMMO

     OK—YOU CAN all wake up now.

Last week was just one big long nightmare of snow from Tuesday to Friday.

It never really happened.

Saturday was the first day of spring and it won’t be long now before we’ll all be grillin’ and chillin’ and complainin’ that it’s too hot and muggy.

The daffodils that had already poked their heads out from the pine bark mulch by the road underneath the row of white pines will simply pick up where they left off a week ago Monday when it was almost 60-degrees and I drove home with the top down on my convertible.

The wood duck that I accidentally spooked from one of my three nest boxes in the backyard will hopefully come back and raise a family later in May when it’s warmer.

The gaggle of eight ring-necked ducks that paid us a visit to the lake behind our home will continue their journey northward to their breeding grounds somewhere in Newfoundland or Maine or the Great Lakes unfazed by the March meteorological anomaly that sent us scurrying for our snow shovels.

They will soon be joined by the huge flocks of mergansers that appeared over a week ago on the reservoir a mile from our house.

Like the swallows that return every year to Capistrano and the salmon that seek the rivers of their birth, these water birds appear every year like clockwork. They descend on area lakes at the end of winter when the ice is gone to rest and to feast on small fish warming themselves in the shallows before taking to the wing once again.

Today, the waterfall behind our house is a thundering cascade of spring runoff from the melting snows. It is the echo of the cymbal crash heard throughout nature on Saturday when the earth arrived at that point in its orbit around the sun when it was light for as many hours as it was dark. And from now until June 21 or so, the days will continue to wax longer and the nights shorter.

Man has always been fascinated with the arrival of spring. King Solomon weighed in on it when he wrote these words from his “Song” in the Old Testament: “See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.”

Its arrival has always marked a rebirth of sorts—not just for nature but also for us humans. It is a time of awakening, a time to forget the old and to embrace the new.

It is a release from the mundane things that after three months have added up to the point where we are all just ready for a change. You know—like having to wear layers of heavy clothing, white-knuckle drives to work on icy roads, and leaving home mornings in the dark only to drive back home again in darkness later the same afternoon.

I can’t wait to inhale the aromas of the warming earth, new mown grass and fresh piles of damp cedar mulch. I am longing to hear the calls of the small, reclusive wood thrushes and veeries, piping their reedy songs from deep within the deciduous forests as they leaf out later this year. And I am looking forward to that first morning when I can sit comfortably outside on the deck with a cup of coffee without having to don a fleece.

Whatever your passion in life, take time like the busy King Solomon to pause from it for a moment over the next few weeks and just sit and watch and enjoy the spectacle of spring unfold before your eyes.

And give thanks. n

Gregory J. Rummo is a syndicated columnist. Read all of his columns on his homepage, www.GregRummo.com. E-Mail Rummo at  GregoryJRummo@aol.com