The True Herald of Spring

He was the legendary harbinger of Springtime. everything a Robin should be, sitting fat and cocky atop my back garden gate, fully aware of his beauty as he turned his perfect head this way and that as if to give God Himself the opportunity to appreciate him in his best light. Impressive, yes.... a handsome creature to be sure, but alas, he could tell me nothing.

I look up, up and notice how the ancient oaks and poplars now appear pale-green, dandelion-fuzzy in the penthouse levels of their skyscraper dizziness. I have seen the smiling saffron faces of the daffodils as they wave to me each morning when I tie back the lace curtains over the windowseat. I have even spied a bunny in the moonlight. But delightful as they are, and try as they might, they have no real news to give.

The Arthur Rackham calendar on my office wall quite confidently declares that Spring will arrive during the month that begins tomorrow, but it is laughable to believe it. For the seasons pay no heed to the calendars of men; give no credence to his schedules or his expectations. They run a celestial relay all their own, handing over armloads of lovely hours to their successors when they alone decide the time is right. It is pure folly to think it will be on the same day each year.

One must watch carefully, must always pay attention, for the true herald of Spring is found in neither flora nor fauna but rather in a certain ephemeral, almost invisible, quality of light. It can appear on the coldest hour of a March afternoon, or as late as an April dawn, but if one is watching closely, one will see. The sharpness of the clean winter light will have melted round the edges, become more watery somehow, more suitable for the quiet illumination of a rose. Then and only then will Spring be here.

I once returned in April from a ten day trip out of the country. As I sat down my bags and walked into the kitchen, I could see it clearly. The light had changed. It was a languid light now that floated through the house like an etude, no longer the crisp light of Winter that had pierced my windowpanes just the week before. Spring had arrived and I had missed it. I resolved to never let that happen again.
So, I am watching.
Are you?

A Light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That silence cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.

Emily Dickinson

Painting: Spring, 1913
by Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson

New Inventions

Over the past week I have received three emails from friends who have just lost their jobs. Serious jobs, too, jobs that seemed secure. Being self-employed, I suppose I cannot really lose my job - I sort of am my job. But when those who once hired me are now contacting me for leads themselves, I know something troublesome is afoot. While I am truly encouraged to see the way our new president has grasped hold of the reins of this runaway coach, I know it will take a while to pull it up to a comfortable pace for all the rattled passengers inside. Indeed, even when this downhill ride has reached level ground, the economic landscape seen outside the windows might look a bit unfamiliar to us all.

All this has led me to think about reinvention. I was speaking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, a woman full of optimism and industry who thinks this is the perfect time to start a new career, to take a chance on an idea that might have been simmering on the back burner of one’s mind for ages. Her enthusiasm was infectious. It made me think anew of the old adage, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Perhaps, for some of us, this financially fitful time represents the impetus we have waited for. Too many people of my acquaintance work away everyday at jobs they truly despise. They look wistfully at the Songwriter and myself and say if only they could get up every morning and love what they do. Of course, we hasten to tell them that self-employment is quite often far from a bed of roses, but they are difficult to convince. Perhaps this current situation, though worrisome and rocky, may serve as a bit of a reshuffling of ideas and goals, of priorities and dreams. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are people like my friend, who will see this time as the fabled fork in the road they have longed for, a magic moment to reinvent their lives, to create a new venture, to realize a long held dream.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted,
does not consist of creating out of void, but out of chaos”
Mary Shelley

The Alchemist

Watching the Academy Awards is a tradition for me. Popcorn, comfy pajamas, fire in the fireplace....all the necessary accoutrements for a long and entertaining evening. I usually make an attempt to catch most of the nominated films, but this year I fell woefully behind and shall try to catch up over the next couple of weeks. One I did see, however, and found to be amazing, was Doubt. Engrossing, with blistering authenticity and truth, it contained four peerless performances. Of course, I am unabashedly a fan of Meryl Streep.

I well remember being in Paris in 1981, walking down the street past a newsstand and seeing her on the cover of Time magazine. It was a winsome photograph, but I don’t know why it stands out in my memory. Funny, but I can still see the sunlight that dappled the road that day. I have followed her through the years from a farm in Africa, to a hilly seaside town in Greece, from Auschwitz to Oklahoma, Lyme Regis to Madison County, from a courtroom in Australia to an editor’s desk in New York City. She possesses the ability to create another person so completely one would expect even her fingerprints to have changed in the process. She brings people to life in such a transcendent fashion as to give one a real glimpse into the inner workings of other minds, other souls. In doing so, she enables us to understand our collective humanity just a wee bit better.
How does that happen? I am grateful for the mystery. I don’t want to know the secret to how it’s done. I am just grateful Meryl Streep does it.