Mid winter thoughts of spring by John Dersham

Last week we did not have a single sunny day. It was cold, wet, and foggy and it created the exact circumstances each winter that trigger my thoughts of spring. I love all the seasons and I enjoy the changes of the seasons immensely and all the wonderful holidays and special events that are placed firming in each of the four seasons. Each season has its own beauty and its own feeling that is entrenched deeply in each of us created not only by the changes in weather or by the events and family holidays that take place in each one of those seasons, but me it is a feeling much deeper, a feeling that is generated by the changing weather and the changing look of our landscape. Spring is my favorite season and it is now in the coldest dreariest part of winter after the wonderful fall and winter holidays are all over that my mind, my mood, and my feelings of the heart drift to thoughts of spring. This feeling is a carryover deeply entrenched in my physic from my childhood and early adulthood when spring meant playing outside in the sun on the green grass for the first time in months. It meant picnics, baseball and flying a kite in a breezy blue sky. It meant staying light later and playing all those fun outdoor games in the neighborhood with friends after dinner; Hide and Seek, Mother May I, Hop Scotch. It was time to build the annual fort in the woods behind the house. The breeze is cool but the sun is warm. The sun and the blue sky feel good on the face. Spring flowers dot the greening landscape with color. As a young adult getting in the car and driving away from home by myself to hang out in the park and take it all it. It was all about friends out hiking in the woods and sitting on the hood of my car solving all the world’s problems, talking about sports and girls and hoping to have a girlfriend. Then one spring day you do have a girlfriend and you and her drive freely out into the countryside, it is beautiful, she is beautiful, the air is pure, your heart is free and the springtime scenery never looked so good in your life. You are in love; the music you listened to that spring day remains your favorite music for a lifetime. You picnic in a green meadow in the state park, the trees and the grass smell good, she smells good and the world is perfect, absolutely perfect. Spring is as special for me as it was then. Yes, I have to admit the emotions are not as impactful as they were as a youth fueled by newness of everything and the free feeling you get being out in the world, in love  and for the first time you are moving into adulthood without your parents.

Now spring is about the beauty of the environment. The trees as they bud into tiny leaves that when backlit glow and sparkle in the sun. It is about hikes with my wife and dogs in the woods and that joyous feeling of beautiful weather.

Now, in the coldest dreariest season it feels good to let my mind and heart drift to these thoughts of spring.