by T.C Leonard

Created on: December 25, 2008

Winter, for me, is a long, slogging journey through ash tainted snow and slush. My lowest point, physically and spiritually, occurs in January and February, as the bulldozers shove the snow in parking lots into huge piles that are destined to melt and re-freeze until sometime in early April. Waking up and looking at the mountains of caustic sludge on the other side of the road sends me into brief bouts of depression. The once pristine flakes that brought joy to everyone on Christmas day are waiting to die, and most of us have long since been ready to throw an extra log on old man winter's funeral pyre. Out with the bad; in with the good: spring, save us from this three months of hell. Like the grass and the flowers, I want to live again!

March is said to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but in recent years in these parts it has played a number of last minute dirty little tricks. By the middle of the month, everybody seems to wonder if that last snowstorm will truly be the LAST one. The apple farmers are running those giant fans at night: the ones that keep frost from accumulating on the buds and destroying the harvest before the flowers even have a chance to bloom. People everywhere are optimistic, but a certain degree of winter grouchiness remains. Then as suddenly as can be, we awaken to that first sixty-degree day, and then spring is truly upon us!

Some people find spring in the birds and flowers; others know it's here when their favorite baseball teams come north from Florida or Arizona and start playing on their home fields. At any rate, spring is a time of shedding as much as it is building, whether it be those three layers of winter clothing or those thirty pounds of fat accumulated during the cold season. One suit of heavy, rigid clothes goes into mothballs, and a much more pleasureable one emerges. Likewise, the sun sheds its role of being a supporting character and becomes the star in this play called life for the next eight months. The whole scene gives rise to thoughts of reincarnation and life starting anew. Wishing one's life away three months at a time is a grim existence. Thank God for spring; HE is showing HIMSELF around every corner and in the very air we breathe.

As favorite seasons go, it's easy to make an argument for summer and fall, but spring is as much about what is coming as it is what has been left behind. For that reason, I rank it as my favorite time of the year. The fish are biting, and people gather in the parks and on the bike paths. A bad day at work or a minor spat no longer has the power to ruin anyone's existence, and like so many bears, the human animal begins to dream again. If summer is adulthood, fall is middle-age, and winter is old and tired, spring must signify a rebirth or beginning. When the April showers come, it will be great to be young for the forty-fifth time.

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