On Spring (again. and again. and again)

Having just finished editing photos from the week, I am sitting here wondering if I can write about anything other than the changing of the seasons. It seems like all the words falling from my head to the keyboard lately are about this time of transition. And even as I type this, while I want to write some philosophical, introspective question pondering the "why" of it all, I know that what I'll end up doing is writing about the fact that I spent the entirety of last week moping mud-- in the form of paw prints and boots-- from my kitchen floor. Because that is how tied to the seasons our lives are in the north. It's just that simple.

This week, we spent the majority of our days outdoors. We flew kites.


We searched for signs of spring-- and found plenty of them-- as we walked through our yard and the woods behind our home.


In this time between snow and green new growth, the rawness of the natural world creates a vulnerability of the most organic kind. It makes me love the brown of the forest floor, the muck of the muddy yard, the lack of color along our horizon.

There is something about the brave bulb that emerges while snow storms (like today's) still loom in the weather forecasts.

There is something so motherly about the way the pines smell, the way wet leaves that fell last year mingle with new buds of spring to give off a sense of anticipation, mixed with memory, mixed with what's happening in the moment.

I'm searching for that deeper meaning after-all. And getting little long-winded while doing so.

But still.

Max and Lizzie and I were hiking with our pups yesterday. I watched as Max barreled up and down the hills behind the house, familiarizing himself with the ground beneath his feet now that the tracks from our skis have disappeared.

He rediscovered old hiding spots and trails we use only in the warmer months, laughing and whooping with the kind of energy that bursts from my children every spring.

Yes, I notice, they too, feel the connection to the renewal happening all around them. I was thinking this, as I trailed silently behind Max, Lizzie strapped to my back, my camera clicking away. I was thinking about how lucky we are to live in a place that invites children to be part of the cycle, to live their lives in the womb of the forest, to grow to know the seasons on that intimate, familial level.

Of course. It is this sense of family, this sense of ourselves in the trees and wheat fields that surround us, that make me blather on about spring. We are in a time of transition, and like everything happening around this house, we too are consumed with the change.