The urgency of spring

I told a friend that I write more or less the same essay every Spring: it’s so fleeting! Go gather it up! Go stick your face in a lilac bush!

And it’s true. Those cherry blossoms feel like they last mere hours. How many days does a tulip bloom? What if the rain comes and strips all the petals to the ground? It happens.

And I feel urgent as well—which is a nice change from the somnolence of winter.

For a moment there I wasn’t entirely sure somnolence was a real word—and not just something that exists in my brain alone—but it is: a state of excessive sleepiness or drowsiness; a strong desire to sleep, even during inappropriate times such as during the day. Which is a good description of how I experience winter in a northern climate: the ongoing urge to nap.

Then spring comes in, all green shoots poking out of the ground and a mix of rain and sunshine and the most delicate petals unfurling and my entire city starts to smile and stir and head out to walk on blossom-strewn streets and sit on park benches and feel the sun on our faces again. The blood begins to quicken and—in the words of Hemingway, we begin “to be happy and to make plans.”

I’m not usually a quoter of Hemingway, but that line, about the feeling brought by eating oysters in Paris from A Moveable Feast, was a favorite of a friend of mine who passed away, so I use it as often as I can. Spring, oysters, life, it’s all urgent and fragile and worthy of our time and attention.

Spring reminds me that I must take all advantage, must look for and appreciate the beauty, must not waste a single night when I have the opportunity to go to sleep and wake up to the smell of lilacs by my bed, one of my great joys.

The first few days of lilac season I was too busy to cut more than one bouquet—which I then carried from the dining table, where I had been working all day, into my bedroom to go to sleep, then back again in the morning. I was trying to balance the all of life and the imperative to enjoy it all at the same time. It’s not always easy.

As always, it helps to slow down. It helps to pay attention. It helps to have a dog that must be walked, or a young child who is closer to the ground to point out small things we might miss.

This year I am focusing on giving it away. On cutting flowers for neighbors, on sending far-off friends flower photos from my walks. I want to build community, and it is a joy to share. These flowers do not last long, and then they are wilted, crispy, gone. Until next year.

I don’t know about you, but the intensity of political life, the dire feeling in the pit on my stomach, makes me want to put more good out into the world, to counterbalance the harm.

Who knows what next spring will look like? What we have is now, this beauty, and these people around us. Let’s share, let’s take care of each other.

On Thursday a friend came to harvest lilacs. She is helping to plan the fundraising auction for her children’s school and needed flowers for the centerpieces. We raided two lilac bushes and the buckets she carried away were so fragrant I could just imagine the car ride home. And the community that would gather and the good they could do with the funds that were raised and the children that would benefit and the need that is so very great.

Everything feels urgent now.

And so, I am taking in the scent by the lungful. I am stopping to look—really look—at the beauty. I am sharing, and making plans, and appreciating all that there is. The time is now.

What about you? What are you noticing this spring?

Things delighting me right now:

• This song, which I cannot stop dancing to.
• First picnic of the year! Vietnamese takeout with a sunset view to celebrate May Day.
• Learning about birds through these free neighborhood walks. I’ve never had much interest in birds, but they are fascinating. It opens another dimension in my brain.
• Dahlia stamps. So pretty, I am obsessed.

On the other site this past week: I inadvertently started a garden gang! I will be helping them grow tomatoes, but they are helping me grow something else entirely.

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Something else to enjoy: my books: