Spring’s symphony lures me outside thirty times a day; sharp winds chilled by snow falling north of us chase me back inside. With the door open until the radiant heat kicks on, I witness preposterous pre-Beltane hummingbird operas. Breathy whuff whuff whuffs alert me that ravens eyeball the spilled seed from a chickadee/finch feeders and I dash to glimpse those ebon beauties. Busybody magpies audaciously trumpet imagined rudeness, repeatedly. I sit to tear Scott’s luxurious paper strips into much smaller scraps and watch spring arrive in its coltish exuberance.
As I rearrange the shape of cotton fiber from one form of paper into the foundation of another, a call and response song swirls between my corseted, bundled-up winter self and my gamboling fritillary spring self. This whole-body unbinding invigorates me. How happy I am to check which plants need to be moved, where the weeds are already out-of-control, which birds now nest in the mulberry, how many gophers took up resident. The pile of paper awaiting tearing shrinks and the joyous duties outside increase. I catch a moment of nuthatch dance; then there’s the extravagant spilled-paint canvas of cheat grass green. My senses actually awaken. I hear, see, think, feel, and smell more vividly.
I’ve already worn my yellow mustache from dandelion tonics, seared my forehead, strained a cranky spine, walked into forgotten prickly pear, and lamented one more year with only one or two potential apricots. Loretta’s tomato giantesses lustily solicit me to dally with them outside, NOW! Cats relearn push/pull door-operating techniques and the consequences of perching on the convenient but verboten bird-catching rock. Although I’ve never seen a seed pod, the violets that Yoga Mark gave me way back when dispersed and now their tiny, lovely faces lure me low all over my yard. My body limbers in preparation for summer’s relentless demands.
It’s all intertwined. I ease into the work of summer by preparing to make paper which will appear as art about the same time I lug in my last harvest. What a treasure a gift a remarkable happenstance for me to witness one more spring in this body, in this house, in this community.