Change of Season

Spring is not my favorite time of the year albeit the season does bring some of my favorite things: Lilacs, Lilly of the Valley, Sand Cherry Blossoms, Crab Apple Blossoms, Red Wing Blackbirds, Mourning Doves, and Dandelion greens (new, tender, and better than spinach). While I like new grass, Daffodils, Tulips, and Hydrangea, they don’t sooth the fact spring also brings thunder storms, hot weather, too bright days, and gardening/yard work.

Often in spring, I have watched our weather go from 30 degrees overnight to 80 degrees the next day. I do not rush out to worship the return of spring as others do. In my opinion, Persephone should remain in Hades with her abductor. I sit in the house and mumble to myself and God about the too great switch in temperatures, the glaring sun that is causing the heat and my general reluctance to see summer with all its humidity and extreme temperatures just around the corner. I don’t sun bathe – never when I was young and svelte and certainly not now when I am “hands full of svelte”! Daylight Saving Time is another diatribe better left to another story. In other words, don’t get me started!

Spring means dirt! Dirt is tracked into the house in the form of mud, winter sand/salt mix, moldy leaves, dust flying in the air, and other stuff too gross to inspect too closely. I vacuum, dust, and vacuum dust, and vacuum, dust and . . . . Holy Minerva! Stop me. Along with the vacuuming and dusting, we have a tree near the front entrance that is of the Locust family. It is the last to lose its leaves in November, and the last to grow new ones in June. It has the tiniest of leaves that get into everywhere: hair, clothing, cracks and crannies in the windows and doors, the car. They don’t rake up nor blow properly with the leaf blower. The tree has another endearing quality: it drops seeds for nearly a full month! I literally, no exaggeration this time, take a push broom and shovel and clean the deck and steps only to repeat the process two hours later. If you don’t keep at it, the seeds track in and leave stains everywhere. I do love that little tree for its shelter of birds and the shade it eventually provides; it is a part of the property we rent so we do not have the privilege of taking it down and replacing it with a “nice” tree.

I suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Most people suffer from too little sunlight and become depressed during the long winter months. There are a little known few of us who are exact opposites. The shorter days and autumn’s softer day light, bring peace and tranquility and the long winter nights are a comfort. During spring and summer, the extra long days and brighter light mean anxiety, nervous fidgets, and irritability. I was fifty-some years of age before I met another person like me – after growing up thinking I was unique! Several years ago, a doctor actually spoke on a TV special about there being more like me. Gadzooks! If there were more of us the ozone layer would have been perfectly safe as we would have increased it to provide more filters from the sun.

So what does all this have to do with birds? Birds make the earlier mornings bearable! Robins have such a soft yet cheery chirp. Red Wing Blackbirds have a thrilling call and sing clearest with cloudy skies and rain falling. Mourning Doves have such a velvety, mellow tone heard best at evening when the light is fading and dew is beginning to form. After bright spring days, I steal out to our patio to the swing. Perhaps it is cool enough to use a shawl, hold some knitting, or have a fire in the chiminea.  All is still. The neighborhood is settling down; even the children have reached a point of slow and quiet. There, with just the slight creek of the swing, a gentle breeze, and mood lighting created by God, softly comes the first “coo” of a Mourning Dove. If I am very still, there will be an answer from another direction followed by yet another. Sometimes, one will fly and the soft warbling of their wings in flight adds to the serenity. With very little effort, I am lulled into a rest far better than sleep. Just before the last rays of the sun disappear, the Mourning Doves are joined by crickets, frogs, and maybe a loon call or an owl. Bliss!

I am most blessed if such an evening is followed next morning by a chance to sip my coffee while listening to the Mourning Doves herald a new day along with Red Wing Blackbirds calling that it will be misty and cool all day. Such times are to be treasured, valued, tucked away in memory and thought about during those more hectic times of summer activities and heat. Times when the cares and worries of the world strive to push aside God’s promise He is in control and nothing can remove me from His saving mercy. He gives to us those beauties of His creation to salt away as tokens of the Heaven we will one day see.

The spring in 2010 after a trying time of watching Helen battle cancer, Dave become disillusioned about his workplace, and Marc and his family struggle with their own economy became a special challenge to put all the change grave illness brings in perspective. I was weary in bone and body, in mind and spirit, in heart and soul. I didn’t want to do what my dad did. As he suffered the trauma of watching many in his family die before the age of forty five, he succumbed to depression. He basically went to sleep for almost fifteen years. He rose early, went to work every day, came home every evening, napped until the rest of us went to bed, then prowled the house alone and sad until he fell asleep before starting the cycle again. His Rip Van Winkle escape caused him to miss much of what might have been a comfort to him had he stayed awake to participate.

There are days when I just want to go to sleep and stay asleep and not think and not try to give to God what energy I have left. My father did not recognize depression for what it was. He was actually trying to protect us from the sadness of losing him at age forty five. If we didn’t know him too well, we wouldn’t miss him so strongly. I was born when Dad was forty four years of age. He lived to be sixty nine years old. In retrospect, I see what he was doing; I pray God will help me not be like him in that way. Instead, I have long conversations with God, write letters to Him, and dedicate memories to Him. It’s a better way to fight depression and fear, I believe. I hope some of Dad’s prowling was spent the same way.

So, the other day I stepped out our door and saw Mourning Doves. They were just arriving in the area so had not started the process of nesting calls as yet. But I saw them! My heart lightened. I began to watch carefully. More arrived and finally I was able to hear a call. I remarked to Dave that they were back but that I had not yet seen nor heard Red Wing Blackbirds. Great day in the morning! They too are back! What a lovely cacophony.

Mourning Doves are tied to people I love. Helen enjoys the evening cool and the sounds that come from the quiet time before sunset. My mother hated them. She connected them with too many mornings prior to funerals. She would throw rocks at them. I am sad to relate she had a good arm and unerring aim. When she learned how much I loved their sound, she did not come to appreciate them but did refrain from throwing more rocks. Even though he never knew my mother, Marc also does not like Mourning Doves and would gladly throw rocks if his daughter Bett would let him. When Bett was an infant, we would sit in the evening or morning cool and I would call the Mourning Doves for her. Later she learned to call them as well. I also cawed like a crow one time so she could see which bird was making that noise. As a crow landed on an electric wire nearby, she frowned and said she didn’t like that bird. As a murder of crows grew on the wires and trees nearby, Bett glared into my eyes and chided, “Just look what you did! I’m going in!” Dave and Isabelle cannot hear them. The tone is just soft enough to escape their hearing. Jenny has never said anything about the birds – nor has Kevin. They are tolerant of the attitude of those pro and con.

February 12 of this year, we received news that Helen has passed the three-year mark of her cancer as being cancer free and having great numbers in her blood work recently checked. Marc and family are not completely back at par after some of the financial changes in the economy, but they keep on trucking. Bett and Belle have their good and bad days at school, but they are growing into fine young ladies. While I wish I were still best because, as Bett put it “You are four like me!”, I know that friends, cute teen guys, and activities aren’t quite as exciting as baking cookies and pies with Grammy. Dang! I miss that.

We basically sidetracked winter this year. Autumn had its beauty and stayed long. Christmas neared and we had just enough snow to be able to call it a “White Christmas”. Then Winter gathered up her velvety cloak and skits and traipsed on out of here, leaving moderate temperatures, dirt and dust and decayed leaves, road salt to blow freely through the air, and no snow in which to frolic. (Yes, at almost seventy years of age, I DO still frolic in snow.) It is March which is supposedly one of our snowiest months in Minnesota. A few weeks ago, we had slop! Rain, snow, rain, sleet, snow, slush fell by the bucket load, stayed a few days and caused driving and walking problems. It is gone! Ice is supposed to be out of the ground sometime in the next week or so (usually an occurrence celebrated in May or early June). We are having record high temperatures for March. Those who think they can manage time, save time, build time, add time, and recapture time have inflicted daylight saving time earlier than ever. Someone should break their little hearts and let them know nothing changed but their stupid clocks!

My seasonal affective disorder has kicked into full swing. I am jittery, anxious, tend to be crabby over small irritations, and weep easily. I have already found ways to stay out of the sun and in shadier, darker rooms of the house. I have instituted my search in the Bible for comforting passages and I have begun seeking those things that help me make it through spring. I’ll worry about summer when it gets here.

Yesterday, when the temperature was already in the mid seventies, I stood quietly while all my favorite birds called and chirped at our bird feeder. I enjoyed the memory that on Monday of this week Dave and I saw our first Sandhill Crane and a Bald Eagle in the same errand trip. I pulled the gas grill onto the patio and prepared to cook our first meal on the grill. I repeated my mantra, “God created seasons for man to enjoy. He meant for me to find pleasure in each one even if I have favorites, He will bring me cloudy days to break the heat and brightness of the summer. He cares that I don’t deal well with weather that is too warm. He cares. He cares.” In the midst of my chanting the birds were calling; I noticed buds on the neighbor’s tree. I got out a broom and cleaned up the grit which protected us from the ice that had been on the steps of both of our entrances. I attached the hose to the faucet and used it to wash away some winter dirt on the patio. I checked the peony bushes for early signs of sprouting and then fired up the grill.

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven: ² a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, ³ a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3:1-8. Yup, God cares. He has arranged the seasons. I will listen to the birds; I will watch for the lilacs, lily of the valley, peonies, hydrangea, and I will find pleasure in the season. If the summer is hot, I will hide from it the way some of you hide from the cold winter. When the first blessed day of Autumn brings cool temperatures and color in the vegetation to excite and charm, I will come out of hiding. I will lift my head and wave goodbye to the flocking birds heading for warmer, brighter climates. I will watch the sky and sniff the breeze for the fresh scent of the first snowfall. I will not be discouraged nor dismayed for my God is in charge!