The first Spring

This is going to be my first Summer in 2 years. I missed last Summer completely, being gone from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I've just realized that I feel anxious about it. Through the anxiousness about Summer, though, is a true love that has developed for Spring.

I find myself thinking that Fourth of July is just around the corner. Now, one could make an arguement that it is, but I've been thinking this since early May. And I somehow feel like after that, Summer is over, when really, it's just begun.

Then I find myself worried about the heat. I haven't been really really hot since 2005. (It was hot in Paraguay, for sure, but it was still their Winter, and so even then it was 90, it would be 40 again three days later and so it just doesn't count.) I hate the heat. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Would rather be caught in a snowstorm and freezing than hot.

I have always loved the Winter best, and then had sort of a back-of-my-mind appreciation for Spring. This year, though, it's been different. I still loved the Winter, but it was my third in a row, and somehow the lead up to it wasn't as amazing. It just seemed regular and inevitable. Spring this year, though. Wow.

I've noticed the budding of everything. I've stopped short on the sidewalk to look at an unusual flower. I've stopped to try to count the snails on my plants along my front stairs and given up because there were too many. I've taken photograph after photograph of the sunset from my front porch. I've planted vegetables and just two days ago, harvested 5 of the the most beautiful, red radishes you ever saw. I took photos of a tree as it passed through phases of budding and blooming and growing a new coat of leaves for the season. I revitalized a plant that was left on my deck all Winter and have revelled every afternoon in feeding it and in how well it is doing. I have gone out during lunch for walks in downtown Boston just to appreciate what 72 degrees feels like. I have had my first pedicure of the season and have begun shaving my legs at least twice weekly, something I haven't done for more than a year.

Tres inviernos (three Winters) has really shifted how I appreciate the Spring because it has such an important job. It leads us into Summer. Gently, easily, and with grace. It takes us to the 90s and back down again to the 60s as prep work for heat to come back later. It makes us suffer the rain so we can appreciate the green that will come of it. It warms us during the days and treats us to perfect cool sleeping nights. It asks us to pause for a moment and appreciate nature. It invites us to wear less clothing, smile at passers-by and flirt with good looking members of the group attractive to us. It gives us more sunlight; earlier mornings and later nights.

I'm so glad that I've been effected enough by my three Winters to really appreciate the Spring in a whole new way. I feel like someone who has lived her whole life in the tropics or Siberia and is for the first time, experiencing Spring. What a gift.