Spring Magic

For me there are several signs to indicate spring is on the way.

When the garden starts so show signs of life.  This includes when the witch hazel blooms.  But that's so early that I don't really consider it spring.  It's just heralding that winter may be on it's way out - in six weeks or so.  But when the forsythia blooms, now that's a sign that spring is on its way here in the Northwest.  The shot of bright yellow on a mature bush covered in blooms, feels like sunshine on even the most gray and rainy days.  I even saw two evergreen clematis in bloom yesterday - their creamy white flowers gracefully draping a fence.  Gorgeous.

When you can begin to smell things again.  I grew up in the Midwest.  C O L D winters.  I noticed outside smells disappear when it's cold.  In the spring, the rain has a different smell, the earth has a smell, and the first spring blooms have a smell.  To me it's the smell of hope and new things.

When the birds wake you rather than the alarm clock.  This is one of my favorites.  We are not quite there yet, but it's only a matter of a couple weeks.

When the neighbor kids come out of hibernation.  This is my favorite.  There is one magic day each spring when you see kids again.  A day where parents didn't send them outside, they went out on their own.  Here, that magic day was yesterday.  The time change means that it's light until 7 pm - not dark already by late afternoon.  It was forecast to rain, complete with thunder, but didn't.  The sun was in and out of the clouds instead.  And in the late afternoon, before dinner, there were a half dozen kids outside playing.  (Dinner, here, means the evening meal.  Not lunch. But I digress...)

When the kidlet was little, this was a boys neighborhood.  All boys and only one girl.  Spring games usually involved some sort of made up ball game in the street.  It's become a girls neighborhood over the past few years, with only two very young boys.  Now, its sidewalk chalk and hopscotch.  Yes.  Hopscotch.

It doesn't really matter the type of games.  Or if it's a boy neighborhood or a girl neighborhood.  The sound of them playing again - outside - is like having the birds rather than the alarm clock wake you up.