Sunday Sunshine: Spring in Your Step

For some of us, winter has taken its own sweet time to exit so that spring can walk through the door. Long, dark nights and cold temperatures, laced with a stiff wind, can wear on even the most resilient soul.

Spring comes along to remind us of renewal, the return of light, a time of birth and growth when everything springs back to life.

As you experience the vernal equinox  and the first official day of spring later this week, how do you plan to celebrate this change of seasons and the welcoming of a greening and growing time in nature and in your own life?

Happy Spring!

Spring Bouquet

Spring arrives with the same exhilaration I feel when I receive a gift of flowers. I have said time and again in this blog how much I love spring and how it is my favorite of the seasons. I particularly love the hopeful, spring-green color that emerges in the hillsides when everything starts to wake up and come back to life for another season of growing and blooming.

While I know that spring officially arrives in March, in our cold climate, spring doesn’t start to make itself obvious until sometime in April.

My love of spring began when I was a child, perhaps because my late mother and I enjoyed spring birthdays. More likely, however, I love spring because my mom embraced the season fully with a joy that could only rub off on those around her.

My late mother, Barb Naidl (right), and me, posing in front of one of the lilac bushes in our backyard.

Spring meant an ever-cascading array of flowers in our home—lilacs, lilies of the valley, branches of forsythia and flowering current, and stems of iris, some dark purple and white and others brown and yellow. All of these flowering beauties grew without much assistance in our spacious backyard. They seemed to know they were welcome there, so they flourished pretty much on their own.

Me, lounging in our backyard. The beds of iris are visible behind me.

Beginning in April all the way through May, Mom would fill antique pitchers of all sizes with flowers, including one really large white porcelain pitcher that nestled perfectly into a large porcelain bowl, even though the bowl was not its original mate. That pitcher was so heavy that it required two hands to carry it safely.

This heavy bowl and pitcher held sprays of beauty during all seasons.

My favorite spring flowers were the lilacs and the lilies of the valley because of their heady scent. Mom would carefully cut, trim and then arrange small branches heavy with lavender and white lilacs in her precious pitcher collection and then place them strategically in nearly every room in our house, thus filling each space with fragrance.

There would be delicate milk glass vases filled with lilies of the valley, offering a lovely white-on-white contrast to the dark walnut antique commode chests on which they would be featured in our home’s living room. My mother loved antiques, so our home was rich with them.

Spring also meant the early budding of our yard’s three willow trees. Although they tend to be messy, I’ve always loved weeping willows. In the spring, they are among the first trees to hint that the seasons are changing, with their delicate yellow hue. 

The weeping willows in our yard provided a place for me to play and imagine.
In the early spring, they were among the first trees to hint at spring when they
turned a gentle shade of yellow-green while everything else was still brown.

Violets played a big part in my childhood springs and they still do today. As if overnight, our backyard would transform into a sea of white and purple as the violets began to bloom. Our family would wait to mow the lawn for the first time in the spring until the violets had had their time to shine.

Aside from nature’s welcoming changes, spring also meant a change in wardrobe, particularly represented by a new dress to wear to church on Easter. I can still remember how special I felt in one particular Easter outfit. The dress was made of a linen blend, the top portion of it white splashed with large, navy blue polka dots and the skirt portion plain navy. Over the dress was a matching navy linen blend coat. I wore a white hat decorated with a wide, navy blue grosgrain ribbon. The outfit was topped off with white anklets, white shoes and white gloves. I felt snazzy!

One of my favorite new Easter outfits from my childhood.
I felt so dressed up with my hat and matching dress and coat.

Despite my fond memories of new Easter clothes and the remembrances of how special I felt in them, when I reflect on springs past, it’s the flowers I recall most vividly and how my mom would bring them inside to transform our home into a special, fragrant and lovely place.

There are signs of spring sprouting everywhere now. Spend some time in nature, watching the changes unfold, the flowers bloom and the increasing signs of earth’s reawakening.

And as the earth transforms, contemplate what that reawakening of spring might mean for you.

In Bloom

If there's ever a month that conveys the hope of spring, it is April. For those of us who live in south-central Wisconsin, spring often takes several weeks after its official arrival in March at the vernal equinox to make itself truly known. 

April begins, of course, today with April Fool's Day on the first. Sometimes, April does fool us by hanging onto March's lion-and-lamb tendencies -- first hinting at warmer weather, then clobbering us with one more heavy, wet snowstorm.

As April gets used to itself, however, it gets over its last-attempt winter tendencies and becomes what it was intended to be: the month of blooming joy. 

From the wood violets and Virginia bluebells to the tulips and daffodils, April settles in as its colorful and happy self. It is the month when nature's palette moves from gray and tan and brown and white to red and yellow and deep purple and bright green. It's as if everything awakens, and with that awakening, April decides to put on its best finery and make an appearance.

April is also the month of warm sunshine and refreshing raindrops. Both are needed for this month of renewal.

At this time of year, I can no longer stay inside, content to simply look out the window. I've already done 90% of my spring cleaning during the deep, dark winter months. I surely don't want to waste a single day or minute of glorious April stuck inside cleaning. 

April is meant for long walks, big dreams, deep breaths and blooming energy. Soak up its loveliness.

Welcome, April! 

Spring Song

A few days ago, a friend shared a time-lapse video of various flowers unfurling from bud into blossom. The video was set to music performed by violins and other string instruments. The production was so colorful, so enchanting, so beautiful that I had to watch it again and then share it with others. Given that our section of the U.S. has been suffering from a weeks-long deep freeze, the opportunity to watch flowers unfold -- even if it was on video -- was a treat that this lover of spring needed very badly. Consequently, I am grateful that March is here! Although it can be a fickle month with a warm day here and a remnant of winter there, I find March to be a hopeful month. It is the month when Daylight Saving Time begins again (March 8 this year) and, less than two weeks later, spring officially arrives with the vernal equinox (March 20). Already, the sky has more of a "spring" look to it. The sun seems brighter. The lilacs and azaleas and magnolias are holding tight to growing buds in a state of impatient waiting. I awaken to birdsong out our bedroom window. All about me is a spring song. I carry that song inside me, as well. With winter's cold and darkness soon to leave us, I might want to hurry March along, but I know that by focusing on mindfulness and absorbing each moment of this transitional month, I will witness the unfolding gifts of spring. They may not be as dramatic as the time-lapse flower video or be accompanied by the swelling strains of violins, but the song of spring is a sweet one. It is all I need to feel the joy of this new month and season.

Petal Pushers

With all of the late spring snow and dreariness we had been experiencing lately, I didn't expect to see anything in bloom.  How could any living thing be so brave as to bloom while being tossed around by swirling snow?  However, I was thrilled to see some courageous daffodils -- some petal pushers! -- standing strong, blossoms open, one recent snowy, windy day.  They reminded me of the courageous people I know who smile, express their gratitude and reach out lovingly to others when all of the snow and dreariness in their lives could easily cause them to retreat inward and stop blooming.  As lovely spring days work their way to us in Wisconsin, I am grateful for the few brave daffodils that rise and shine and bring cheer despite the weather.  They bring new meaning to me to blooming where you are planted.

A Whiff Will Last Me

My good friend Kitty and I drove through "ice fog" and hoar frost-laden trees yesterday to find spring.  We were on a mission to attend Wisconsin Public Television's popular Garden Expo in Madison.  This annual mecca draws thousands of eager Wisconsin gardeners who are just itching to dip their green thumbs once again into the warm soil.  Some, like Kitty, are knowledgeable and experienced, while others, like me, are just grateful to think about the gardening that we don't really do, but that we fantasize about doing.  One of my favorite things at the Garden Expo is the large flower garden placed in the center of the exhibition hall.  After months of seeing snow white and pine green, I get to feast my eyes on red tulips, yellow primroses and purple hyacinths.  This year, I just had to tuck my nose into a hyacinth and take a deep whiff of its heady, sweet scent, enough of a whiff to last me until spring.  So, in a rather un-ladylike position that would have appealed to a contortionist, I took a deep breath of spring sweetness, only to find that I wasn't alone.  My making a fool of myself encouraged at least one other to do the same.  It'll surely be a while before spring arrives in Wisconsin, but at least for yesterday, I could breathe in the warm perfume of hyacinths instead of a shock of cold, Wisconsin winter air.