Slowing Down for Spring

Hurry is, I think, the enemy of spring — or at least of the appreciation of the season’s subtleties.

When the gray, dreary days such as we endured in the winter past yield to blue skies and puffy white clouds, and the azaleas and magnolias and a myriad of other seasonal flowers burst forth, our step lightens. But for many of us, the warming earth simply adds to the list of chores. Although there is pleasure in releasing pent up energy—we must weed the flower beds, prepare the earth for new beds, plant the garden, flush away the pollen  that has painted a mustard color on our cars and concrete, windows and porches—the demands of the rest of the world do not diminish.

WE MARVEL AT the earth’s renewal, but our attention to it is as brief as the dogwood’s blooming and the landscape fades into the background.

We are, as a former diplomat acquaintance put it, time burdened.

And it is our loss.

In the coolness of the morning, a mockingbird runs through its song, reprises it with variations and then repeats the whole thing. The performance merits applause. (Although we had many birds around our home on Lake Martin, there was an absence of mockingbirds, so its song is a particular treat.)

On many of the walking paths in National Village, wildflowers grow. Some are large and showy, others so small and delicate that the walker must stop and look deliberately at his surroundings. Many of them bloom only briefly, but they are no less beautiful than the domesticated flowers around our homes.

THE OPEN FIELDS, such as the large meadow near the Marriott, are awash with color. In the golden morning light they wave in the gentle breeze as if inviting one to walk among them. In the slanting light, the flowers on the thistles are a complex set of geometric structures.

As Housman noted in his paean to the cherry tree, we are allotted only a certain number of springs. It is a pity to waste one.