Not Much Spring In My Step

This past Sunday morning, after I’d heard the whirring of Rob’s hybrid car as it pulled out of the driveway for a church destination an hour away, I thought I might relish the freedom of having plenty of time to get moving. I even got to see some warblers busying themselves about a dozen feet away, twittering as they moved amidst the catkins hanging from the birch branches outside the bedroom window.

Oddly, though, while I was curious about the birds — trying unsuccessfully to identify the species — I didn’t feel anything more than a passing delight in them, and this was unusual for me.

The fact was, I’d been feeling both sluggish and sad over the past few days, and the weight hadn’t lifted yet.

Just because Spring is showing itself more clearly out there (even with chilly temperatures), it doesn’t mean that we always feel the best of the season in our own selves. I’m guessing you’ve experienced this yourself, one year or another.

Got Through It Fine, But Still

I understood, at least partly, why I was tuckered out. I’d been focused on preparing a particular school-wide event for weeks, and after it was over, I was both relieved and also exhausted.

By the time the students (who make it all worthwhile) were setting up the tables last Wednesday, 90% of the work had already been done.

For the third time in so many Aprils, people filled the gym, and students had the chance to converse with adults they met for the first time, learning about businesses, testing out ideas about what their own futures might hold, and collecting swag. It was pretty darn good, all things considered. My hard work amounted to something.

So why then, afterwards, when lugging piles of stuff back to my office, putting the vases of flowers in my car, and still when I got back home, facing a string of vacation days ahead, did I feel something less than elated? Spent, was more like it.

Strategies For Keeping Your Soul Alive

About a month ago I received an invitation from the writing center in Boston where I spent a year drafting the memoir manuscript. Could I participate on a virtual panel program on an evening in May? The program would be titled “From rejection to resilience – strategies for keeping your writing practice alive.” Okay…I think. It’s true, I have learned a thing or two about developing a thick skin when it comes to staying at this process, not getting too discouraged about agents who don’t respond, always looking for new avenues for publication, believing in the power of revising, the power of perseverance, believing in the project itself. Still, though, there are days when I feel more foolish than fulfilled; days when I fear I’ve been wasting hours and hours of my time; reminders everywhere that sand is steadily falling through the hourglass, and won’t go back up again.

Recently, the ophthalmologist (how about that extra “h” as a third letter?) who is treating me for the glaucoma that I apparently inherited from my mother said, with admirable forthrightness, “Your optic nerve in the right eye is thinning, and while there’s been no damage yet, this isn’t reversible. We must get that pressure down.” Yes, we must, because it will be even harder to identify those birds at my window, let alone read a chapter of a wonderful book or see my own book out in the world, if I don’t keep my vision.

Then again, I think I’ve also lived long enough to understand that it takes more than good eyesight, or any of the other senses for that matter, to keep a soul fully buoyant. It takes looking forward to doing things you enjoy, seeking out new thrills even, being with people you love, laughing about almost nothing, feeling that you’re contributing in some small way to the larger good.

Going Outside to See What’s Inside

Not feeling in a renewal kind of mood, and also conscious that it had been a long while since I’d just wandered around outside, I pushed myself out yesterday morning, as the sun shone. I knew it wouldn’t take long to spot some new colors emerging from the ground, some very subtle:

Others, way brighter:

In the third stanza of her poem beginning “I dreaded that first robin so…” Emily Dickinson wrote, “I dared not meet the daffodils,/ For fear their yellow gown/ Would pierce me with a fashion/ So foreign to my own.” While my gloom wasn’t quite to that extent, I understood it. Radiant sunshine was nice, but currently, at least, I wasn’t generating it on my own.

Arriving down at our pond, a place I walk to less frequently than I used to, I sat on the bench and paid my respect to my beloved erstwhile companion. Grief has a way of sticking to your spirit.

Heading around the other side, I noticed this tree which, once vertical, had become horizontal in recent storms. Seeing that it was still rooted, though, I wondered how it would do in the coming months, whether we could try to help it survive by lifting it up.

And then, I paused a long while to watch a couple of black-capped chickadees dart around in some scrubby trees and brush. They weren’t singing exactly, but they were making all kinds of sounds, trying out different perches, moving their heads around like crazy, one even acting like a downy woodpecker crawling up a tree looking for bugs.

Other times, I would have passed them by, barely noticing these common creatures. But on this particular morning, just standing near them for a while, absorbing some of their energy, without them coaxing me with “C’mon, look at what a beautiful day it is!” or “Think of all the positive things in your life!” was just what I needed.

Rather than be alarmed when we feel a bit under the weather, maybe it’s better to accept that reality and ride in that carriage for a little while.Yesterday, as it happened, I got a little bit of good news.

Do you have any particular response to the coming of Spring this year? I’d love to hear from you.