My stupid alter ego, Dan, seems to think that springtime is wonderful. He writes these little nature observations about birds and plants that show that springtime is coming. Pfeh. Mr. Crankypants does not like spring. Spring means happiness and hay fever. Mr. Crankypants agrees with the late great Dorothy Parker, who wrote:
Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.
Enough said.
The past few days, I’ve been awakened against my will at 5:30 in the morning, in spite of having stayed up late the night before, by the dawn light creeping past the window shades. The sky turns light at an ever earlier hour; the rate of change increasing day by day, up until the spring equinox a week away.
It rained this morning, briefly. I walked home for lunch: the rain had released the smell of spring from the earth, it had washed the pavement clean, I couldn’t help but inhale deeply and fill my lungs with that scent.
At sunset this evening, a walk down to the waterfront. My mind was busy with work, but slanting light pushed even that away for a minute or two: blue sky and fast-moving dark clouds and bright sun: spring sky.
Close to 70 degrees again today, with beautiful sun. Carol has been subletting one of the units in Cambridge Cohousing, and as we ate breakfast we could watch one of the residents disassembling the small ice skating rink in the yard below us: pulling up the stakes, knocking the side boards apart, rolling up the plastic sheet that held the water in. No more skating this season.
We walked over to the supermarket and I heard two Common Grackles, the first I have heard this year. Their harsh cries sounded musical to my ears: spring is coming, spring is here.
And I feel a faint tickle in the back of my throat, a little shortness of breath after I’d been walking for two hours to Central Square and back: tree pollen is out, and hay fever season has fairly begun.
The intermittent rain has been working on melting the last of the snow: snow piles left by shoveling and plowing, snow protected from the sun on the north side of buildings, and the snow left in the courtyard of the Whaling Museum across from our front windows.
Two days ago, a woman started working in that courtyard, pushing the snow up towards the main entrance of the museum. As I sat eating my lunch and drinking my tea, I couldn’t figure out what she was doing at first: why bother clearing away all that snow when it was going to melt in a few days anyway? But gradually she piled it up into a definite shape, and when I came back in the late afternoon the woman was gone, but she had left behind a sperm whale fashioned out of snow, with a black beady eye and a jaunty tail that, due to the limitations of the medium in which she worked, had to be a little too small.
This morning I sat at my desk, working my way through the Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana-sutta in preparation for this week’s sermon. I vaguely heard rain begin to patter on the roof and skylights. Barely conscious of it, I thought only that perhaps I’d get wet when I went for a walk today. I read on:
That this was the noble truth concerning sorrow, was not, O Bhikkus, among the doctrines handed down, but there arose within me the eye (to perceive it), there arose the knowledge (of its nature), there arose the understanding (of its cause), there arose the wisdom (to guide in the path of tranquility), there arose the light (to dispel darkness from it).
At last I had to get up and stretch. I wandered around, and looked out our front window to watch the rain coming down. The poor snow whale was being melted by the rain; its tail lay shattered on the ground behind it. Above it, tiny crimson flowers begin to open on the maple just across from our windows. The gray stone of street and courtyard reflect the gray sky. A woman walks by, clutching the hood of her blue coat so it will stay on her head.
Watching for spring:
A few green shoots in a warm protected garden: bulbs just starting to emerge.
Two pigeons engaging in courtship behaviors on the swing bridge across the harbor: twining their necks, bobbing, circling.
Daylight lengthens perceptibly over the course of a week: light remains until past five thirty now.
A sense of hope: in spite of everything that is going wrong in the world.
A warm winter like the one we’ve been having can give the illusion that spring is just around the corner. Swelling red buds on the maple trees in the courtyard across from our apartment don’t indicate that spring is coming, they indicate that the winter has been warm.
Yet it’s about this time of year when you first start hearing bird songs, the first really reliable indicator of spring. A couple of Northern Cardinals have been wintering over in some evergreens on the road to Fort Phoenix. All winter long, when I walk past them I hear them giving their call note: chip, chip, chip. But today when we were walking home from Fort Phoenix, I heard their song for the first time this year: cheer, cheer, cheer.
With the warm weather of the past two days, some things have suddenly changed. The long spell of cool weather kept a forsythia in the next block blooming for three weeks; suddenly it is covered with small green leaves and the blossoms are at last falling off. Tulip blooms that had stayed fresh for weeks curled and withered in the past twenty-four hours.
Swallows are everywhere over the river now. Rough-winged Swallows have claimed the space around the State Street bridge. I saw a few Purple Martins over the river downstream of the railroad bridge. Tree Swallows seem to be everywhere.
Tree Swallows strike me as utterly alien beings. You can pretend that some birds and animals have vaguely human characteristics — Cardinals seem cheerful, Racoons seem smart and sly, even frogs can seem to take on a human character. But when I look at the bright round, slightly protruding eyes of Tree Swallows, I can’t imagine any human expression there. Whatever thoughts or feelings they have are wholly their own.
Home from the Boston area, where Opening Day is considered one of the great religious holidays that welcome the arrival of spring. I know some of you follow basketball, and there were a number of people wearing orange in church yesterday. I, too, hope that Illinois goes all the way. But basketball is a sport. Baseball is religion.
Depressingly, the Boston Red Sox dropped their season opener to the hated New York Yankees. (Please, no nasty comments from Yankees fans, or I will have to remind you what happened last fall, in just four games.) I’m convinced one of the reasons Universalism began in New England is because we New England baseball fans needed an optimistic religion, a religion that assures us that everything will turn out fine, that some day the Red Sox will be perennial winners.
What’s that you say? Universalism started before baseball was even invented? Bosh! I don’t believe it. Haven’t you heard of the Winchester Profession, the 1803 profession of faith of Universalism, which clearly states “We believe that there is one God, whose nature is love, who will finally restore the Red Sox to their righteous place as perennial winners”? This clause was carried over in modified form to our current profession of faith, the UUA “Principles and Purposes,” where it is clearly stated: “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote the goal of Red Sox Nation with peace, liberty, and the annual demise of the hated Yankees.”
There you have it. Now if we could just get some decent pitching….
Sure signs of spring showed up in the past few days —
Early daffodils in full bloom today two blocks from the church, on the south side of the Dupage Library System building — which is right across the street from 18 Campbell St., the house of Augustus Conant, first minister of this church.
Looks like only one of the owlets remains in the nest next to the courthouse — s/he wasn’t there yesterday, nor again today. It is likely the other one has gotten good enough at flying to head off on his/her own.
Tree Swallows are back. I saw several dozen over the river an hour ago, just downstream from the Union Pacific West Line bridge. It looked like they were finding lots of insects — insect hatches are another sign of spring.
And it will really feel like spring tomorrow, because Daylight Savings Times begins. If you’re coming to church tomorrow morning, don’t forget to set your clocks ahead!