Uncoiling

It happens every year in the late Winter: I begin to uncoil. It's a palpable feeling of opening up, each time I get up in the morning and the sun has already risen and there is a breeze blowing in off the river. I can smell Spring coming, from a long distance, and it triggers a desire in me to get out all my shorter trousers, all my short-sleeved tops, dig up those stalks I left in the garden which are now all brown and crisp and will crumble into dust if I touch them; it's like a hibernating bear, dreaming those last few winter dreams, begins to stir in restless slumber, waiting for the time when she will wake to the new grass sprouting and fish coming back up the water to spawn.

I start to become tired of the cold. I feel quite put out
when the sky is the color of a bruise, and begins to spit out that last, wet, sleety snow. Of course Nature has every right to snow--it's still Winter. Spring is about twenty days away, and that's only the official date for the season to turn--here in Ohio, where the Spring is largely mythological instead of real, it's probably more like two months away until I can actuall begin digging and planting and get those windows open at last to blow out all the dust that's accumulated since October.

I also feel like traveling. I don't have anywhere to go, really, but I want to pack some stuff in the car, drive in a Southerly direction, and just get on the road. There are a lot of reasons not to travel at this time of the year. The weather is unpredictable. I could be driving through 50-degree weather one minute, and in a freak blizzard the next. There's not much to see right now, either. No leaves yet--just the rosy tips of the maples and dogwoods as the sap rises. This is one sign I watch for every year: when the woods take on a pinkish hue over the usual brown-gray, I know that Spring and leafing out is imminent. I once read somewhere that the maples bloom early--most people don't know they do, because the flowers are simply small, insignificant green clusters with red arils, which get shed and fall to the forest floor like red-pepper flakes--sometimes on the snow itself. There are other signs just as reliable though.

The Canada geese begin to make big Vs across the sky, taking off to their nesting grounds. Certain birds become scarcer--chickadees and cardinals to name two--and others come to take their places: robins, kingfishers, bluejays and hawks. Hawks are plentiful now--you can see them standing sentry along the freeways, one about every five-hundred feet or so, feathers fluffed and shoulders hunched against the cold breezes that make the tall trees sway.
When the weather warms and even now, on sunny days, you will see them circling, looking for early-waking mice or squirrels, or simply enjoying the sun on their backs as they glide the thermals. The daffodils and early tulips begin to poke up fat green fingers through frozen soil. Cress appears on the stream-edges. Skunk cabbage emerges, looking like small heads of lettuce dropped accidentally. And every tree you see will soon bend its delicate small branches, heavy with fat buds. It's coming. There's no doubt. But it takes its sweet time about it.

They say Spring moves Northward at about fifteen miles a day from the South. I want to rip down the road at about eighty--taking note of every sign and sigil as I fly. That's
the uncoiling that begins in me at this time of year. Once begun, it goes much faster than Springtime. I can already see the riot of color in my front garden, even though I haven't planted a single seed yet and won't for a while yet.

Maybe it's time for some inner changes too. This year, I'll buy a bicycle and begin pedalling to work, instead of driving. It's not far--less than a mile. I can do that. And maybe this year when the ground thaws and the nights are warmer, I'll put in that patio I want so badly--and build my firepit up with some blocks or stones. I have a wall in front of my house, I could use those rocks. I'll need a wheelbarrow to haul them--the work will be hard and sweaty, but I'll love it when it's done, I just know it. And music--I want to have parties

where people bring their guitars and banjos and drums--around that new firepit. I'll put the canopy up and we'll eat hotdogs and roast marshmallows.

Damn--I'm impatient, that I am. Spring isn't even here and I'm already planning Summer. Moving right along, at a speed much faster than Nature intended.