Friday Follies ~~ Is it time yet?

It’s Winter out.  No surprise or big news there.  But there is something going on.

I spend a fair amount of time outside.  Usually that time is spent on a bike, or doing yard work.  But it’s outside.  More, I like to look around me, to see what the world is doing.

Right now, the world is doing!  It’s not obvious.  It’s subtle.  It’s almost below the surface of perception, but it’s happening.  Nature has been sleeping, but she’s starting to get restless again.  It’s almost time.

Evidence:

The days are getting noticeably longer.

“My” vireo returned and started her morning songs last week.

I saw one (half starved) robin on a morning ride this week.

Some of the early bloomers (notably the forsythia) are just starting to show.

Buds are swelling.

If you go outside, and just stand in the woods, you will feel it.  There’s a building tension.  Like standing in an empty theater an hour before curtain time.  There’s a buzz, just below the surface.

Spring is on the way toward us, moving north at a rate of 133 miles per day.  She ain’t here yet, but brother, she is coming!

Spring brings silliness.  People are more sensitive to the climate and the weather than most realize.  That accounts for a lot of silly behavior, and “Spring Fever.”  Just about the time that Spring really starts to make her presence known, people start to act a bit goofy.  I am aware of this, and I do try to maintain rationality, but I’m inclined to some giddiness and lapses of sanity at this time.

When I was a kid, my family referred to it as my ”Silly Season.”  Every Spring, sometimes more than once, I would do something wild and get graunched in the process.  At a time when most families were attended to by one doctor, a General Practitioner, my family always knew a surgeon, an orthopedic specialist, and were on a first name basis with the staff at the local Emergency Room.

I learned a lot from those early whacko traumas, but nothing more important than this.   Think of your life as a video, with you as the director.  You are filming it and watching all at the same time.  Picture this; your personal “editor” cuts a piece out of the film.  You were doing something, but suddenly, and without transition, the viewpoint changes.  Suddenly you see sky, surrounded by heads.  Friends, this is a clear indication that you have done something stupid.  You are lying on the ground, and they are all looking down at you.  You fell down and went BOOM.

I pulled a lot of these stunts as a kid and young man.  I’ve learned to exercise a bit of caution as the Spring breaks over us.  When that giddy feeling of gleeful mirth starts to bubble up in the chest, these days I tend to go for the brakes.  Usually.  Most of the time.  But Spring Time and adrenaline are so much fun!

That time is coming.  I can hear it whispering, hear it approaching, feel the good Earth starting rouse from slumber.  I wonder what it will bring us this year?

By the way, I have a new mountain bike.