Spring

Monday was the first day of astronomical spring. That means it is time to shed winter coats, open the windows, and read The Secret Garden. What? You don’t read The Secret Garden every spring? That is one of the unwritten laws of my life along with “always buy the books” and “there is no such thing as too much tea.” I thought I would share a few spring-themed quotes today. I haven’t done a quote post in a very long time. I’ll start with a quote from The Secret Garden.

“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”

“It is the sun falling on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine.”

The next quote is from E. B. White. I think many of us know him because we read Charlotte’s Web as children. However, he was also an amazing essayist. I have a number of his volumes of essays. One day I will get around to reading them all. Meanwhile, we have this quote that made me laugh.

“The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.”

I haven’t read My Antonia in years and years but I came across this quote and now I think I need to reread it. Willa Cather was an amazing author.

After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.

I started this post with a quote from a children’s book and I am going to end the same way. If you did not grow up reading Elizabeth Enright then you should remedy that right away. I loved her books and so did my children. This is from The Four-Story Mistake.

It was still raw and cold, but every now and then there would be a day, or an hour, or a moment, when the sun came out, and there was something different in the air: a sort of glimpsed fragrance, like when the kitchen door is opened for a second while the birthday cake is being baked. It was a smell of promise. The little brook bellowed hoarsely; there was a swelling at the joints of the twigs, and the first skunk cabbages appeared, brown cowls beside the brook. And at night, tinkling, jingling, gurgling, with high silvery notes, came the voices of the peepers. The dark was spangled with their voices.

Today is cloudy and damp. The wind will go right through the light jacket I will insist on wearing on my walk to work even though a heavier one would be more sensible. But the days are getting longer, the flowers, are starting to push up through the frozen ground, and, yes, spring is here.