Waking up in late spring I am wistful and absurd. I have an idiot’s grin as I jump around a white room in pajamas, appreciating the ceiling fan, clean clothes and flip flops, the ten minutes I am fully awake before my alarm is set to blare.
I can’t explain it; something feels so reminiscent of me at six years old waiting at the bottom of a very steep drive with a quarter meant only for chocolate milk in the front pocket of a navy corduroy dress. Too early for the bus and a little too cold in planned layers, squinting in the bright snap and hearing the birds call with their singsong (the one that sounded then a little like one note and then the other of “spriiing’s here”). Sometimes my cat Cream would wait with me and she would leave a trail of short calico hair on my tights as she rubbed aggressively from one leg to the next.*
Walking to the subway is practically cheery. Full of motion and still happy when I run back upstairs in a panic to clutch tonight’s concert tickets (they were, er, rolled in a newspaper in my other hand all along). Idiot’s grin returns to spread to the people on the streets.
Usually there are so many bad connotations for the weekday morning. The dread ahead for to-do lists that include strict intentions to floss the week before a six month cleaning, as if that would offset four Fridays in a row that ended with copious amounts of Diet Coke to “re-hydrate”. Notes to self. The idea of getting “finances in order”.
But in the late spring--funny because this year the early spring is late and so we’ve skipped weeks of this for rain and for the chill of seasons that should have finished months ago—weekday mornings are something else entirely. They’re hot coffee, blades of grass, birds beyond pigeons. Sideways light and bare legs and the smell of herbs on windowsill gardens. Plans to meet just because. Gatherings to celebrate the purchase of new grills. Changing directions because now is when everything feels right.
Sure, its expiry comes too early. This year, last and the next. But for now…
Spriiing's here.
I can’t explain it; something feels so reminiscent of me at six years old waiting at the bottom of a very steep drive with a quarter meant only for chocolate milk in the front pocket of a navy corduroy dress. Too early for the bus and a little too cold in planned layers, squinting in the bright snap and hearing the birds call with their singsong (the one that sounded then a little like one note and then the other of “spriiing’s here”). Sometimes my cat Cream would wait with me and she would leave a trail of short calico hair on my tights as she rubbed aggressively from one leg to the next.*
Walking to the subway is practically cheery. Full of motion and still happy when I run back upstairs in a panic to clutch tonight’s concert tickets (they were, er, rolled in a newspaper in my other hand all along). Idiot’s grin returns to spread to the people on the streets.
Usually there are so many bad connotations for the weekday morning. The dread ahead for to-do lists that include strict intentions to floss the week before a six month cleaning, as if that would offset four Fridays in a row that ended with copious amounts of Diet Coke to “re-hydrate”. Notes to self. The idea of getting “finances in order”.
But in the late spring--funny because this year the early spring is late and so we’ve skipped weeks of this for rain and for the chill of seasons that should have finished months ago—weekday mornings are something else entirely. They’re hot coffee, blades of grass, birds beyond pigeons. Sideways light and bare legs and the smell of herbs on windowsill gardens. Plans to meet just because. Gatherings to celebrate the purchase of new grills. Changing directions because now is when everything feels right.
Sure, its expiry comes too early. This year, last and the next. But for now…
Spriiing's here.
*She’s been gone for years and I still hope that when she ran away after we got the new dog, the one that got sick and has now passed on, that she found a different driveway and a different girl waiting for the bus and is still around, surely holding an astounding record for the world’s oldest cat, for another spring.
2 comments:
so excited for spring!
Spring is amazing.
*Very sweet thought about your cat at the end.
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