Gratitude 53

I am grateful for the lovely day today, our first summery day of spring and the first day I have gone outside comfortably in shirtsleeves.  It isn't going to last, and it is expected to turn cool again overnight with thunderstorms and showers tomorrow.  Typical spring weather.

Spring is always the season of change.  I love it for not only the change, but for the new life.  It can be cold, warm, wet or dry.  Usually it is cold and wet, at least till August!  It is not a comfortable season.  When it is warm, this could last for one day or six, usually two or three.  Everyone shucks off their winter layers, flaunting sickly pale white skin (if they happen to be Caucasian!)  and we all think, or wish to think, that summer has finally visited us and it will be like Costa Rica during the dry season until next November.  And how horrified and disappointed we are as the next cold system moves in, dumping buckets of more rain as we bundle up again in sweaters and scarves!

Spring is the season with the mental health disorder.  It could be bipolar, schizoaffective, mood disorder, personality disorder or all of the above.  We never know quite where we stand with spring.  It is always unpredictable.  But the days do get gradually warmer.  In early April the high temperatures were around ten or eleven.  In early May, they range between thirteen and fifteen.  And so on.  There is always progress in the difficult process of spring.

And there is no denying that spring isn't beautiful, arguably the most beautiful season of the year.  The abundance of flowers, the fresh delicious green everywhere and the many delicate shades of that wonderful colour and all the trees slowly bringing forth their tender leaves, and not mention the intoxicating mingled fragrances of flowers, new leaves, tree sap and fecund earth and rain water.  It can all be such a sensory overload as to be far too much to bear.

I just don't understand why so few people ever mention spring when I ask them to tell me their favourite season.  Perhaps because it is so intense?  It is intensely beautiful, yet intensely problematic because one never knows what is going to happen on a spring day.  It is like a beautiful troubled artist, and we know what difficult friends beautiful troubled artists can make.

Spring is the season of life and life always carries with it a high price.  One might think here of bearing and raising children, as an example.  The most beautiful and necessary things are those that pose us with the greatest challenges.  And where would we be without challenges.

For this I am extremely grateful, Gentle Reader.