As Giddy as a Baby on a Swing

Color on the ground

“Calendar” spring arrives annually on March 20 or 21 (depending on the year), regardless of the weather. That’s the spring solstice, the 24-hour period where day and night equal each other in length. “Meteorological” spring, by contrast, is determined by changes in temperature and precipitation, so here in the “mid-latitudes,” March 1 through May 31 is designated as spring by meteorologists. The first of March? Are they kidding?

All that aside, what can we call the kind of spring that bursts forth at last in all its intoxicating glory, the day that daffodils begin opening and peepers go mad in the wetlands and the air is finally warm and everyone wants to be outdoors and the whole world is happy, happy, happy? “Ecological” comes closer to the idea than “calendar” or “meteorological” but still leaves out that all-important feeling component. “Ecological” sounds like something observed and dispassionately recorded, doesn’t it?  Hardly the way we feel. Well, this year, 2013, in Leelanau County, “felt” spring exploded joyously on Saturday, April 27. There were earlier hints and allegations, but no one could doubt Saturday’s evidence. It surged in the blood and sang in the heart, bringing out smiles and laughter.

Sarah in woods

So why on earth would I go to work early, indoors, with spring bursting all around me? Saran and I had gone out even earlier, as soon as the sun was up, and I found one brave little spring beauty blooming among the crowds of wild leeks in the woods (a day later there were too many spring beauty blossoms to count), while Sarah sniffed and sniffed. Besides looking, I listened and listened, scanning the still-bare treetops for the morning’s song-makers. But  there was that big blank space of wall above my new bookstore desk area, crying out to be covered, and I could hardly wait to start rehanging my own personal art wall, a mix of Michigan and Paris scenes. There! Very satisfying! 

Come see the wall "in person"

He's a good worker

Bill Coohon came over in the afternoon to help out with our new door confusion. You see, directly over my new entry door AND the door to my neighbor’s business is a big sign saying LAW OFFICE. The word LAW is actually over the new bookstore door (OFFICE over the office door), and the first couple of people who stopped by on Saturday morning stood in front of the bookstore window looking lost and making questioning gestures at me through the glass. “What? Where? How?” Which way to turn? We hope the big new letters on the new door will help. Bill certainly did a good job with them, don’t you think?

This way in!

Many old friends and a few new ones did eventually find their way inside, and we got a little giddy, what with the warm spring day and the exciting bookstore changes. 

What is she holding forth about this time?

Is Sarah following the plot?

Oh, look! Paintings, too!

By the time we closed up and went home, the first of the old daffodils under the silver maple were open to the sun. It’s really true. It’s really spring. We can feel it at last.

More sunshine yellow