Spring It On Me

It is very obviously time for spring. If I don’t get outside to play soon, I’m going to have rearranged every piece of furniture in my home – twice. I may have also painted all the walls again and can’t guarantee what colors I might use (I'm feeling very electric blue today). And I may actually try my hand at do-it-yourself kitchen remodeling. Anyone have a sledgehammer? All of this because right now I am feeling like something, anything, has got to change. It has to change or I will lose my ever-loving mind cooped up staring at the same sameness each and every day.

I’m tired of freezing day in and day out. I’d like to feel the sun on my face, actually feel it. These days I can see it hanging in the sky, light bouncing off the crunchy brown ground, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it feels like to be warmed by the sun. And when I run, I want to sweat. Not girlie, glistening. Honest to goodness, dripping into my eyes, pooling in my socks sweat. And I know that as soon as the heat rolls into town I’ll be missing the days of five layers and mittens in the house, but for now – for now, I need something to change.

I want to dig my fingers into the dirt of my vegetable garden. I want to see the little sprouts peeking out of the black dirt. I can’t wait for the days of wrangling bugs and hefting water from the rain barrels to the thirsty plants, knowing that soon after the bugs show up and the water leaves town I’ll be d-o-n-e with anything resembling a live plant. But still, I’m beginning to imagine ways to murder my can opener in an attempt to avoid any more canned fruits and vegetables. Of course, I’ll make it look like an accident.

“Truly officer, I don’t know why my can opener would jump in front of the garbage truck like that! What a shame. It was so young, so young, it had so much to give.”

That is the thing about change. It’s good, but I conveniently forget that changes soon become common, everyday, same old same old. And then it is time to change again. So while I’m busy waiting for spring, somewhere deep down I know that once it gets here, I’ll find reasons to hate it. Like the pollen that leaves a fine coating of yellow dust on EVERYTHING inside and out and makes me want to gouge my eyes out with sharp sticks. Just about two days into the pollen days (a.k.a. spring), I’ll be ready to move on. Summer will bring the warmth I’m missing so desperately along with the humidity that makes my hair explode to three times its normal size. Oh, that and bathing suits. So, I’ll be done with summer right about the time I pull out my swimsuits and realize just how little fabric that is. And on it goes. With every change there is some good. With every change there is some not so good. And fickle as we humans are, we’ll keep waiting for change just so we can tire of it and look toward the next chapter.

And in the end, I suppose I need to take comfort in my manic need for change. It’s another good determinate of life. As one blog follower commented recently, “If something doesn’t change, it dies.” And while he was saying that about my beloved print books (Fie! Fie, I say), it does reflect so much more.

I know people who are obsessed with making everything stop. They want their children to stay small, jobs to remain unchanged and easily predictable, homes like museums where the dust never settles, bodies like statues that stay in one, chiseled, wrinkle-free, ageless shape. Everything frozen. Which is easy to take care of. No surprises. I get it. I’ve wanted things to last longer too, like the last few days of a friend’s life. But without that change, without that gaping loss, I’d have never had to change to fill it. And the changes I had to make in myself to fill that hole were huge. Huge and necessary and horrible and meant to be.

So, I’m waiting. Waiting, not so patiently, for spring. And then I’ll wait for summer. And fall. And another winter. All of these changes I’ll add to my life knowing I’ll never be satisfied, not really. And for that I am grateful.