Lovely, the timing. The second day of spring and its long shadows from a bright white sun. Getting rid of winter is always a step back, a step forward--the world making its final decision--until it goes all in, and every one of us knows when that happens, and dares to begin to unclench from winter, which never wants to leave, but, finally, must.
It's too easy to become so familiar with being alive that we lose the sense of how strange it is and how the seasons mirror our journey from birth to death, from spring to winter--from the dying of the flowers, the leaf-fall, of autumn, to the (what else to call it?) resurrection of green life when it inches its way up through hard ground, to poke its nose into the cold air. Yes, yes, a cliche. But aren't so many of what we call cliches diamonds we're so used to seeing that we think them merely stones? It usually takes a life to come to conclusions so obvious one smacks oneself in the head or, finally getting it, can only nod ruefully. Each life, I think, is a long journey home.
It's too easy to become so familiar with being alive that we lose the sense of how strange it is and how the seasons mirror our journey from birth to death, from spring to winter--from the dying of the flowers, the leaf-fall, of autumn, to the (what else to call it?) resurrection of green life when it inches its way up through hard ground, to poke its nose into the cold air. Yes, yes, a cliche. But aren't so many of what we call cliches diamonds we're so used to seeing that we think them merely stones? It usually takes a life to come to conclusions so obvious one smacks oneself in the head or, finally getting it, can only nod ruefully. Each life, I think, is a long journey home.
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