Abide

March is the gasping, beginning breath of spring that feels more like the long, heaving sigh of winter’s end. It is both, of course; the season of inverted umbrellas and worn-out winter boots. March tries to close the drafty back door on the chill of the old and lay down a welcome mat for the new, even if it is woven of frayed grass, dirty snow, and rotting leaves. The old adage “In like a lion, out like a lamb” may try to approach its volatility, but by the middle of the month I will have run out of patience for both of those marvelous creatures. Daylight Savings Time has already messed with my head and the sleep cycles of everyone around me, and although there is “more” light in the evenings to entice us outdoors, there is still no convincing reason to do so. Beware the ides of March, indeed – we are weather weary, sleep deprived, and desperate for something new.

The early signs of spring are fleeting but thrilling. Crocus and snowdrops blossom through the snow; tulips and daffodils take a tentative peek above the surface. The brilliant slant of light and whispers of warm air tease and promise. But the trees remain skeletal and bare; the ground is frozen or muddy. Dead leaves have collected in the garden beds and sunlight filters through an archaeological layer of dust on the windows. Singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer may have found the best words I know to describe this season – “The Beautiful Not Yet.” It all is beautiful, of course, this season of paradox and change. It is likely my weary anticipation, and perhaps a lack of imagination, that keeps me from embracing the grey-brown beauty of March.

Life is humming just out of view; below the surface of thawing ponds, in the swaying branches of naked trees, in secret dens and hidden hollows. Perhaps I am not meant to witness the maniacal workings of the wizard behind the curtain; the dogged cell divisions before the mad burst of color; the skip-flutter heartbeat returning in the frozen frog; the first tentative opening of eyes and fluttering of wings. Nature guards her privacy and protects her fragile beginnings. The curtain is still closed, and just because I am sitting forward in my seat, toe-tapping and impatient, it is not yet showtime. These days are monotony for human animals alone, who wait for something interesting to happen from the armchair of their own climate-controlled dens.

To live palms open through the month of March is perhaps to abide in exhausted hope and patient humility. If I want to embrace the beautiful not yet, I will need to exhale slowly and walk reverently amid the quiet decomposing and hidden rearranging, and believe in the trilling, unheard frequency before the symphony is performed. The life-from-death paradox re-emerges with natural, cultural, and religious seasonality, so predictable as to be cliché. And yet our grasp of it is as thin as the fractured layer of ice clinging to the surface of the blue-green depths of our consciousness.  

Yeats reminds us: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” I might need to sharpen my senses to grasp the frayed, non-sensical beauty of March. Or perhaps it is about relying less on my senses, and believing that I, too, am participating in a sure and inexorable release from dormancy, even if I do not perceive it.

More paradox. I will abide it. It is March, after all.