First Day of Spring?

Not very likely, since it is still a month away but it was the first sign of spring... Brooke and I took Jake to the park and walked through on the path. At first, we walked through a slushier area, still walking on thoroughly snowy stretches of the path. Brooke laughed at how the ice sort of bubbled upward when you applied pressure to it. And that was how it was, the water seeming to flood certain areas since this winter's precipitation seems to be trapped in the frozen areas of ground. Most plant life is still in the winter mode, dead and dormant, and probably will be still for at least the next four to five weeks. But it's hopeful to see some of the snow melting around the grassy areas and the grass underneath is beginning to show color. No doubt the moisture will be crucial in providing ground upon which a healthy foliage will grow. I couldn't help but want to slow down if even just a little bit, to simply examine the ground and long enough to take in the scents of the ground, the freshness of the reeds that grow along the Chalco pond. You learn to enjoy days like that to the best of your ability, to try to shed off the troubles that you might be having, real or fancied within your own mind, and just live in the moment, that ultimately it must be a spirited moment, and if you can't bring the spirit to the moment, then search for the spirituality that might have been intended by it.
I went out a little later on, knowing that later in the week we be once again enshrouded in cold. I walked up into the Tiburon neighborhood with the half-million dollar houses, lining around the golf course , but mostly I was looking for the same sorts of signs from nature that spring might be on its way. Hard to truly see when snow still lies in the hedgerows of the cornfields. One thing about living out here in southwest Omaha is that you are really surrounded by miles and miles of earth.
I remember living on Turner Blvd closer into the city and longing just to out where I was raised where you could take a walk in more desolate areas where there was a LOT less concrete. In that sense, I love it out here. It makes me wish I could buy a slat of land, and till it, work long hours in the fields with nothing but my tractor and my back. Only if I had the strong back to live with that kind of work. I guess even Wendell Berry would shame me for saying that, I suppose it would never be too late to sell everything and buy some farmland. At any rate, no matter whether its my land or someone else's, it is always good for me to be close to the earth, to let it have its natural effect on me.