Spring is Springing

No longer just flirting, it seems that she has come on time this year, sweet spring and all she brings. The doors are open, the dogs are shedding, the weeds are thriving…sitting on the deck in a t-shirt and the sun saluting higher in the sky…the shadows have shortened and the call for activity has sounded.

This year I feel like I have missed most of winter having spent the bulk of it in Antigua Guatemala where the sun shines every day…a wonderful city that sits thousands of feet above sea level and the air is dry and clear and the temperature is as close to perfect as is possible.

As one who needs the sun and grows weary and sometimes sad about its long absence during a Northern California winter…it was different this year. No pining, no sadness…bolstered by a protracted season of sun in Central America. I find myself in the unusual position of craving rain. Perhaps just 3 days of heavy downpour where the sky just lets loose without apology. Three days where I can sit in my little office and feel warm and protected. Winter is the season for going inside and being quiet…I play my guitar, write, read, watch movies…use my windshield wipers and put the collar up on my leather jacket…take hot showers just for the warmth…light a fire. Could use a few more days of that…the quiet that it brings…the comfort one must create in response.

I wish it would rain.

But spring has sprung and I am looking at the yard and feeling the draw to go buy some flowers and put my hands in the soil and watch something grow…something with color. And the boat sits in her slip, neglected, waiting for me to come clean her up and hoist her sails and let her stretch out and roam the bay and see the beautiful San Francisco skyline. Then lumber west towards that iconic passage…under the Golden Gate bridge to the edge of that unfathomable great Pacific Ocean…the rollers lifting me up on my sturdy little boat…knowing they have traveled all the way from Hawaii and Japan and places so far from here….sharing hints of winds and storms and currents I can only imagine.

Spring…when the distinctions of “in here” and “out there” wane. Spring…a time for integration when the world beckons us out of our cocoon…invites us to interact with the elements in a more conciliatory way. No longer a battle against cold or wet…just come outside, walk, sail, wear some sunscreen…feel the wind….see the hills and Angel Island and the grand bridges and the jutting headlands and the sea. It is a call that’s hard to ignore.

But I really do wish it would just rain. Hard. For three days.

Then I think I would be ready to answer her call.