I love spring. Every year I wait for the snow to melt, eager to start lifting up the heavy, wet leftover leaves in my garden to see the beginnings of signs of new life.
Slowly the whole world comes to life. Little snowdrops push through, rewarding me with the first glimpses of what’s to come. About the same time I realize that the cold winter air is beginning to fill with the sounds of songbirds.
Out come the rakes and we uncover tulip and daffodil leaves. Purple and yellow crocuses follow quickly and then the starry shapes of chianodoxa. It isn’t long before the fuzzy leaves and purple petals of pasque flowers join them. I order dirt from the local garden centre to amend the gardens – and, let’s face it, to help reseed all the spots that come from having a dog.
Sometimes, like this week, we’re blessed with a couple of really warm days that. hurry things along. Daffodils bloom and it’s warm enough to sit outside with a cup of tea. In the best springs, it cools off again, leaving us time to enjoy the splendour of the spring flowers before the heat returns, finally doing them in.
I love spring.
Except when I don’t.
About the same time those first blooms are showing their faces and the birds begin to sing, I realize what’s ahead for the next two months. And I almost freeze thinking of the enormity of it.
It’s not just the big bag of dirt that needs shovelling. It’s everything. Sometimes I think April and May are the cruelest months for parents. Every single activity your child is involved in seems to come to fever pitch. Championships. Festivals. Extra practices. Concerts. Extra concerts! And then there’s school. Projects, exams. University students to move home and off to summer jobs – and with more than one away at school, it’s often from different places at the same time. Easter is part of this mix, which, as a member of my local church choir, brings with it extra music to learn and perform in extra services.
And then there’s work. Spring conference/tradeshow season rears its ugly head and with it the myriad of minutia require to make sure there’s carpet at each one (in the right colour and with the right amount of underpaid, depending on who is manning (personing?!) the booth, and furnishings and giveaways and marketing material – let alone thinking about strategic messaging – and on it goes. Doing this across a diverse business is no small feat. Then there’s the presentations, panel participation and speeches to prepare. And the runthroughs to attempt to schedule with executives. This year, the workload is exacerbated by a new structure. But high expectations, by growth opportunities and by being short staffed.
All of this “extra” spring activity brings with it fewer opportunities to get to my yoga class – one of the things I truly believe keeps me grounded in the tsunami that surrounds my calendar. Don’t get me wrong. I love it all. Except it’s a lot to juggle. And sometimes it’s hard not to be overwhelmed.
So this glorious Sunday, with Easter services now concluded, I’m reveling in the extraordinarily warm weather and drinking in the beginnings of fresh leaves starting to uncurl and the sunny yellow of my first daffodils that opened this week, I’m trying to take it all in to energize me to get through the next few weeks and into the relative tranquility of the first weeks of June. Because I really do love spring – well, most of the time!
