Up and Down Spring

The rain is falling hard. I can’t see it. I can only hear it outside my open window as I lie on my bed. The repetitive sound of it plays on my ears like a major chord, a soothing choir singing me to sleep with a lullaby. I haven’t been watching the weather report so the rain takes me by surprise. I thought I had entered the days of sun and warmth but the rain is here to remind me that April is ever changing and that I shouldn’t put my winter jacket away yet.  Yesterday’s sun turns into today’s gray. I am being tossed up and down on the spring roller coaster.

Transitions are never easy. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, it all goes smoothly. But my mind still needs to make adjustments. And I have to change my habits. During these months when nature shifts so dramatically from brown to green, this is when I am most alert. At that first springing is when I am most aware of the warm caressing wind, the brand new golden leaf, the moist earthy soil. I’m watching every small individual flowering bud knowing that in a blink of an eye they will change to a full indistinguishable canopy. Later on, as the green sets in and takes over, I’ll be settling in also, putting away anything winter, making myself comfortable in the routine of long days of light and warmth.

But, today, just like nature, I think about rebirth. What are the new projects I want to start, what do I need to clean out to make way for the new, how do I make use of the unfolding energy. I need to reevaluate where I’ve been and where I’m going. These regular transitions jar me out of my routine. It’s nature’s way of prompting me out my comfortable rut. I accept her nudge and question the old. I follow her cues and push myself in new ways. I see her beauty and am inspired to create my own.

As the rain subsides, I sink into sleep and I let go. And when my eyes reopen in the morning, I’ll be ready for the next cycle, rainy or sunny, warm or cold, but always springing forward toward the new.