Thirty years ago I wrote a poem with the same name as this version of my blog. It was roughly the same time of year, when just about all of us (except the most hardcore skiers) are sick of the lengthy duration of a “normal” upstate winter– four if not five full months into it. Back then I was renting a second floor flat on Walnut Street– the westside of Saratoga– with a friend of mine, and it wasn’t supposed to be my job to shovel the sidewalk around the corner property’s perimeter, but I was doing it.
With every stroke of the snow shovel, I was heaving heavy hunks of winter away– not just the frosty layered corn snow, but also scraping up the ice chunks underneath, adhered to the concrete surfaces in its freeze-thaw cycle. If you had a good sturdy metal shovel you could get beneath that stuff and leverage it upwards in large wedges, and it was quite satisfying to pry it up and toss it off to the side. But it took some effort, and a bit of aggression. My mental state, however, required such exertion– I had just broken up with my long-term girlfriend (almost 5 years together) and was inwardly freaking out about it (her idea, not mine). To keep my composure and feel I was doing something positive to get over and past the emotional upheaval and rejection, the physical ordeal was just what I needed at the time.
During the exertion, that phrase kept running maniacally through my brain– “I’m helping Spring arrive; I’m helping Spring arrive…” as if Spring needed my help.
I had wrongly thought that I was going to marry that particular girl some day, and thought I loved her– we had been through a lot together. But I wasn’t saving any money and she was, and she was ready for a change, thinking things had gotten predictable and stale. So in my shell-shocked, humbled mind, I reverted to primal, Druid mode and started thinking of Spring as the point that would change everything, and renew my spirit.
That’s what my not-so-great-nor-memorable poem was about….albeit was written in February of that year, roughly a month before Spring was actually due on the calendar. The catharsis of shoveling, and/or the poem I wrote to process it, seemed to help almost immediately. Within a week of that episode I had met another girl who became a great, enticing flame and a revelation in a lot of ways, and I would not have met her had I not been a free man again at that point. So certainly I knew that something cool could come from that symbolic sense of renewal…
So I thought of that period again, 30 full years ago, the day I began this episode of my blog– Sunday the 24 of March– by which time, in 2013, we are well past the Vernal Equinox already. Last Tuesday was, most likely, the final major snowfall of the season, when about 10+ inches of heavy, wet snow came down over the course of almost a full day, like we were in a perpetual snow-globe, or a scene from the Austrian Alps. It had turned cold after that so the quick thaw you usually get up here this time of year did not occur, and consequently the snow-pack, at least up in the elevated hills where I live, remained in place till now. Compressed and slightly softening with the sun’s warmth today, the L-shaped part of our driveway still harbored a half-foot of white stuff. This is where I spent part of the afternoon, hacking and smoothly attacking the slow-blizzard’s remnants, even though I knew it would melt on its own in a week even if I just left it alone.
So I began my mantra again, “Helping Spring Arrive…” This time I was NOT going through a romantic break-up, although a day before I hadn’t been so sure. My wife and I were in our 25th year together, and it would be ten times as devastating now to have to start all over, compared to back in 1983. I had just said to an unmarried guy in my office the other day how proud I was to have persevered in a long-term marriage in an era when, as he put it, ” like 70% isn’t it?” of those who get wed end up splitting from each other. As the Dead said: “”Cuz When… Life looks like Easy Street…there is Danger at your door.”
In this past Sunday’s case, then, I decided I was not looking for romantic rejuvenation, unless it was with the woman who had accompanied me, with little complaint, through a quarter century so far. It was a different kind of springtime renewal I needed and craved… a surge and continuation of positive synchronous energy that allows one to not just accomplish more, earn more, & contribute more to the economy…but to help and serve more people than just oneself. To be centered in the proverbial flow we hear so much about but maybe rarely FEEL. To aspire to be a conduit for good, and problem solving; not mucking up situations but clearing them up. To believe the world was still a vital, exciting, and improving place, not doomed nor declining but bright enough for the coming generations to thrive in for years to come. New children, new families, more and more people who are spiritually attuned, and looking for the sustainable good life. This is my hope for 2013, in an era when a lot of people are expecting the worst and hoarding ammunition and thinking of drawing a line in the sand around themselves and their own family, instead of drawing together into a larger community. It’s still touch-and-go I suppose as to the fate of the world, but if all politics (and economy) is local, the recovery is starting to do just fine around here. Check my real estate site for more on that, if you like.
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On a side note, an increase in business demands due to this putative recovery has made me think hard about how much time I can devote to this blog. I am coming up on my one-year renewal for this site, and have to decide whether to continue or not. Some months there has been great readership, other times not so much. I have gotten a grand total of 7 comments for 34 pieces I’ve written here. Much as I love this site overall, the Blogs are a very small fraction of it, and I may seek out a more visible venue. If you like what I’ve posted here in the past year, let me know and that may help me decide. Thanks for reading, if you’ve gotten this far!
Take care and be well,
Wayne, for www.saratoga.com/WaynesWord2
Copyright 2013 Wayne Perras