Sarah’s slice of life: A season of plenty

Spring is a season that smacks you in the face. I remember first thinking this in elementary school. Our school building sat at the bottom of a hill, surrounded by two parking lots — one of asphalt and one of gravel. A thin road ran up from both, cresting the hill until it leveled out beneath an opening in the tree line. 

From below, the opening looked like a gateway, arched like an ancient castle entry, framed by branches and leaves. To my young mind, this seemed almost magical, and I remember watching cars disappear through the opening and half-expecting them to vanish into another world. 

In the winter, the trees were all bare sticks and gray limbs, dead and barren, with only a few brown, scraggly leaves clinging to the branches. During this time, I could see slips of sky and the colors of coming cars through the opening because the trees were skinny and devoid of leaves. 

Winter has a way of making the world a little thinner, a little shallower, and the opening at the top of the hill reflected that. No matter the weather, the kind of day, winter turned the opening colorless and bare, which lessened some of its wonder. 

I attended school at that elementary building for three years, and each year, it was always the same. One day, the opening remained stuck in winter, framed by gray sticks and empty trees. Then, the very next day, spring would remake the world, filling the trees again with color.

When that happened, the tree line exploded with fullness as new leaves grew, branches filled out and the bareness disappeared. The world was both new and familiar, overflowing with growth and life. I always knew when spring began because the opening in the tree line at the top of the hill looked alive and full for the first time in months.

To me, it always seemed to happen in the span of a breath. Just like that, spring arrived, coming all at once, spreading color like an explosion of fireworks. I couldn’t predict when it would happen, but when it did, it shifted the very world into one of color and light. 

Poet and writer Ted Kooser agrees with me, and he writes in his book “Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps” about the swiftness of spring. 

“Fat slides of snow plop from the wet tin roofs of turkey sheds, and it’s suddenly spring,” he writes. “The seasons change so quickly. … By the end of the week there were robins everywhere, a few early morning doves, and this morning I saw two handsome meadowlarks on a power line.”

Of course, as I grew older, I realized spring wasn’t so sudden or swift. Sometimes, it’s more gradual. First, the cherry blossom trees bloom pink, and then small buttercup flowers take over the hills, spreading a happy, bright yellow like a blanket. Finally, tulips grow on the sides of highways, and the late afternoon sun makes every tree glitter with new light. 

Still, after a long, drab winter, spring does seem to come swiftly, overtaking the world and breathing life into our lungs. It’s no wonder that spring has become a cliché for beginnings and rebirth, but the cliché effectively captures the monumental impact spring can have on us. 

Beyond the cliché, though, spring offers us another chance to interact with the ordinary world. When the weather turns and spring arrives again, it gives us another opportunity to recognize the vitality of ordinary life. In spring, the world is once again full, and life plays in everything. 

Most importantly, spring gives us a sense of plenty. When the world blooms new and flowers overtake the ground, how can we not be thankful for the life God has given us? Spring is a way of seeing just as it is a way of being, and it can turn our hearts grateful so long as we recognize its vivacity. 

Just like that, it’s spring again. As poet Billy Collins writes in his poem “Today,” spring’s arrival should always encourage us to throw open the windows just to feel the warm wind rush in. After all, according to Collins, the world is a “larger dome of blue and white,” and spring offers us the perfect chance to experience growth and warmth after a dark, cold winter. 

Tate is the Editor-in-Chief for the Liberty Champion. Follow her on Twitter