Spring stirrings and artistic renderings of a blue bird, in painted and musical fashion. 

‘Tis the damn season.

Our opening days of spring have been rather chilly, but the sun has been about, and the world seems to be moving in the right direction. A spot of spring music, then, for the afternoon hours, to celebrate the ‘Bluebird’ of this song’s title, and to celebrate the triumphant arrival of spring. Winter be banished!

Afternoon siestas pass more beautifully when something like this is playing in the background, or the foreground – choose your own volume and choose your own adventure. Spring demands we take charge and take control, if only because there is about to be much to do. On that clunky sentence, I’ll leave you to the music.

A song, then, to echo the spring morning we’ve just had, perhaps with a sadder slant in the sweet care of Judy Garland. A few fanciful spring images too, for the season now at hand – now, after so much waiting and wanting – now, after this kind winter, now… yes, now. A word that lends spring its intrinsic urgency: now. 

Last night when we were young
Love was a star, a song unsung
Life was so new, so real so right
Ages ago last night

Oh spring, please be as gay as I remember you being in my youth. Please do not have spent all your lilac blooms in last year’s wayward autumn warmth. Please do not rush, and please somehow make haste. Please… please… another lovely word, perhaps even lovelier than now: please. The want of spring; the regret of winter. 

Today the world is old
You flew away and time grew cold
Where is that star that shone so bright
Ages ago last night?

Spring nights call for music like this, something that rings slightly of Savannah, maybe by Harold Arlen, something that speaks to the heart, and to the longing of the earth when she breaks open in an irreversible state of thaw. Release. And relief. I remember walking beneath a small stretch of flowering cherry trees in Boston one night, long before Andy, long before I even knew or loved myself, and spring felt like the only source of solace for an early twenty-something on the cusp of life. 

To think that spring had depended
On merely this: a look, a kiss
To think that something so splendid
Could slip away in one little daybreak

Such tenderness at the budding youth of the season carries a risk and a warning. There is still time for snowstorms and spring freezes; we might yet lose all the precarious flowers-in-bud, and the world is vicious in how unrelenting such acts can come upon our course. Winter may be harsh, but it would never pretend otherwise; spring is more cruel in what it can take away with its promise of hope, and promise of… promise. 

So now, let’s reminisce
And recollect the sighs and the kisses
The arms that clung

When we were young last night

When a Leap Year occurs, such as occurred last month with the extra day tacked onto February, spring comes early, so today marks the arrival of the season of hope. I’m all for an early spring, in every possible way. Perhaps you’ve noticed some ornamental changes happening here as this site enters the spring season – some vining florals have been winding their way along the borders and featured picture boxes. Spring is more than just flowers and vines – it speaks to something deeper, something more powerful. It speaks to hope, rebirth, and renewal. 

This year, it also speaks to youth – lost, found, destroyed, and conjured. My niece and nephew turn 14 years old at the end of this month, and that was the age I remember coming into the voice and soul I still feel like I have today. Of course kids grow up a little quicker these days, so perhaps they’ve been in such headspace for a while. I was always a little slower and more hesitant to grow like that. 

And so we enter spring with a slower step, a contemplative step, a step that moves us forward while taking a quick look back – something I am loathe to do, but willing to try for all the good that was in the past. 

‘Last night when we were young’ might be a reference to the last day of winter, the last night of one’s youth, or the last bit of innocence before the world reveals some of its darker secrets. Whatever way one reads it, it’s a time for consideration of where we each stand. Slowly, I’m embracing what that means, even when it means growing up a little at this mid-to-late stage of life. There is always room to grow, and spring has often been the bearer of that beautiful lesson. Spring, with its air of hope, its sweet perfume of floral possibility ~ spring, with its tricky weather, its cold nights braced by its encroaching warm breezes ~ spring, with its green splendor and voluptuous buds, tight and hard and coiled…

Spring is when it all happens, even when it might not feel like it in its first few days. All I can promise is that the end will look nothing like the beginning. Take your time and stumble through it with me – spring is better when done with company.