If we were having coffee (or tea, either works for me), I would tell you that spring is my new favorite season, at least for right now.
I have loved autumn. I love the leaves changing colors and falling. I love watching the corn (in abundance in my neck of the woods) turn from bright green and full of life to gold then brown and dry. I love the sound of the wind whispering through the papery leaves, of the cornstalks and the trees. I love watching the sights, sounds, and smells of harvest. I eagerly await being able to see for miles when driving down the road instead of being walled in by giant stalks of corn. (See above reference to the abundance of corn in my neck of the woods.) I love sitting around the fire, roasting marshmallows and sharing with friends. I love the break from the summer heat. I love fall.
When I lived in Ohio, I loved winter. The sparkling of the trees covered with frost. The snow blanketing the roofs. The smoke curling from the chimneys of the Amish houses surrounding our house. And the snow covered slopes. We lived close to a ski resort, and spent one day of most winter weeks on the slopes. I learned to ski when I was 22, and for this very unathletically gifted gal, gliding down the slopes felt like such a big accomplishment. Then we moved to Illinois, and now are several hours away from the nearest skiing. The wind ripping across the prairie yields more ice than snow. And winter has lost some of its charm.
And now spring. The last few years, our winters have been hard for us personally. Some tragedy, some despair, a lot of stress, and a lot of work. I am grateful that the winter that just ended did not contain anything terribly bad for us. But adding a major remodeling project to our already-packed-full schedules, it was just long. For three and a half months, we did not have a kitchen. Rooms were blocked off with plastic. Every.single.thing.in.the.house was coated in a thick layer of drywall dust. The last year or so has been personally difficult for me as I’ve been stretched and grown on the inside in ways that mirror the changes in my house. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and the changes in the house mirror the changes on the inside.
Our remodeling project is not finished yet (still have to paint and install trim and doors and finish up odds and ends), but our kitchen is beautiful and fully functioning. I walk into it first thing each morning to let the dogs out to and am greeted with light pouring in from both the front and back of the house. I open the patio door and see the concrete forms for the new patio and firepit area that are being poured tomorrow. I see the plants and flowers popping up along the fence. I hear the birds chirping. I had my coffee on the backporch this morning (made by the Keurig that has finally returned to the kitchen after living in our bedroom for several months) and watched the birds flit and flutter.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
We still have a lot of work to do in the yard and in the house. Our schedules are still too full. But the sun is shining. The birds are singing. The flowers are blooming. And we have that annual reminder that dark breaks to light, cold yields to heat, and death brings forth life.
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.
-Isaiah 42:9
The Beloved Bittersweet 