Spring Has Arrived

In Northeastern Michigan (LP not UP), spring is finally figuring out that it's a full season. It doesn't have to ride winter's coattails anymore, but also doesn't have to up the temperature to summer degrees every third day. I think.

To be honest, up here in the Mitten, spring and fall are cursory seasons that just barely bridge the unhinged gap of winter and summer. In this week alone, we've had 35ºF nights and 80ºF days. On the days we were promised scorching heat (ten days in advance), instead we got rain. To our great dismay, fluctuations like this are not only normal in a Michigan spring, but also hilariously, absolutely unpredictable. We can guess what tomorrow's weather will be, but no one knows until they look out a window. (Except, y'know, when the days are bright, sunny, and downright cheerful looking ... only to be bitterly freaking cold out. Yeah...)

All of that said, we were finally able to get out and plant flowers in our town's flower boxes. Did it look like rain? Yep. Was there a bit of morning sprinkles? Yep. Did it actually rain at all? THANKFULLY IT DID NOT. Could we use the rain, though? Oh, you bet. If it's too dry to burn, it's too dry. (All summer long, it will be "too dry". Except on the days it's storming and too damn windy. Another fact of life in Michigan.)

One of the corner pots that has the most blooms

Anyway, while I was digging little holes today, I was kind of marvelling at the turnout of volunteers we had. Certainly more than those that joined us to decorate for fall or winter. Then I got to wondering if that was, perhaps, the magic of spring.

You see, in the autumn, we have Thanksgiving, which is supposedly a holiday about coming together and enjoying one another's company. In the winter, we have a variety of cultural and religious holidays that seem to focus more on family spending time together and appreciating what we have and being grateful to recieve more. However, in the spring, we have no major holidays designed to be celebrated as a group.

Yet, this is the day when I actually saw my community come together. It is for this occassion that I saw people band together the most to achieve a certain outcome. No, it wasn't a celebratory event. Nor was it an occassion where refreshments were offered or entertainment was had. Instead, we came together to do chores in the company of others. And not one of us complained about it.

This is the magic of spring. It's a season where people are drawn out of their winter cubbies, feeling renewed and desirous of a purpose. This is the season where we marvel at the buds beginning to form and get giddy over the prospect of brightly colored flowers. We listen for the drone of the bees and anxiously await the return of the humming birds. However fleeting our few weeks of spring might be, we unconsciously relish in its arrival and appreciate the tiny things in ways we haven't in the whole year that preceded it.

No shade to the holiday season, but I'm starting to think that actions do speak louder than words, and my community would rather actively spread generosity and cheer in warmer weather. As always, glad to have this winter behind us. Grateful for those that put on their gloves and picked up some trowels. And definitely eager to track the progress of all of our hard work.

To be honest, as I reread this, it feels more like a post I should put on the Beautification page–and I absolutely will steal a lot of it–rather than one of my regularl blog posts. At the same time, this really was on my mind all day. I'm really glad to watch people come together in ways I hadn't seen them do before. It's almost like if you try hard enough, you can actually take people who are just neighbors and forge them into an actual community. The saying goes 'it takes a village to raise a child', but so many people are without a village, and they won't even try to knit one out of the people closest to them. It boggles the mind.

This is your PSA for the day: Go make yourself a part of someone's village. Even if the most you contribute is making their surroundings prettier, at least they can count on you to do one thing they may not be able to do for themselves. That's what being a village is all about.