I recently remembered an assignment I was given when I was a sophomore in high school. Spring was coming, and our biology teacher wanted us to make some sort of journal, observing trees and plants in our yards and how they changed as spring began. I don’t remember a whole lot about this assignment, but I remember focusing on a lilac bush that my father had planted years before, and having to dry and press a piece of it into the little binder I was using for the project, but the thing that stands out the most in my memory was that the final piece of the journal was supposed to be some sort of essay about what we learned about the seasons changing and how the coming of spring made us feel. (I still think this assignment would’ve been better suited to a language arts class, but what do I know?)
I was always better at writing than I was at things like math and science, but I found this particular assignment difficult. I have never been a fan of warm, sunny weather, and the coming of spring has always meant very little to me beyond the beginning of allergy season and the long haul of summer on the horizon. It was pointed out to me when I mentioned this assignment in an Instagram post that perhaps I should have just been honest, and written about why I didn’t like spring, but I far, far less comfortable in my “weirdness” at fifteen years of age. I didn’t want to give anyone anything to talk about; all I wanted at that time in my life was just to be “normal” and fly under the radar. I actually never even wrote to my fullest potential back then, because I didn’t want anyone to know the real me, though I still got good grades in English. But I couldn’t help thinking about how much easier the assignment would be if I could just write about fall instead.
So, I came up with a strange little plan within my own mind. It’s hard to explain exactly how I did it, but somehow I flipped the script in my head. Spring is, essentially, the opposite of fall. So I thought about what I loved about fall, and then basically reversed it, to come up with a little piece of writing that made me sound super enthusiastic about spring, the “time of new beginnings”, as I referred to it.
I don’t remember how I did on the project, but I was proud of myself for coming up with such a plan, and still being able to use my love for my actual favorite season to my advantage. But, after having it suggested to me that I should’ve just written how I really felt, I’ve decided that maybe it’s finally time to do just that.
What does spring actually mean to someone like me?
I recall a morning, I believe it was the year I was fourteen, when I was finally acknowledging just how deep and how needed my love for Halloween was, no matter what the calendar said, when I was walking to the bus stop and suddenly realized how green everything was. I could have sworn the trees had all been bare before I’d gone to bed the previous night, but now it was obvious that spring was upon us. I was amazed by the suddenness of this transformation of the world, and honestly, a little saddened by it. Just a couple of weeks before, I had effectively weirded out my parents by blurting out “How depressing!” when they mentioned that Daylight Saving Time was on its way. Bare trees, dead leaves, and darkness were my salvation while I waited for Halloween-time to come around again. I was always looking around, pretending, during the off-season, and green leaves and long daylights were, obviously, very destructive to this practice. However, the more I stared at and contemplated these green leaves, that had seemed to so suddenly have burst onto the scene, I came to a realization.
If spring had come this fast, this suddenly…perhaps fall would, too.
My aunt was always telling me, in the car on the way home from trick-or-treating, It will be here again before you know it. But it never really felt like it. However, this year it truly felt like spring had arrived before I knew it, so perhaps fall would be the same. Almost subconsciously, I begin to picture these newly sprouted green leaves in shades of red, yellow, and orange. Suddenly I could feel it all around me, like a precognitive vision. These leaves would, soon, I told myself, take their autumnal form again, and everything would be as I wished it to be. Maybe it never really was that far away, and maybe these leaves were proof of that.
Spring is a time of new beginnings, after all. It brings us the leaves that will bid us the most beautiful of goodbyes once several more short months have gone by.
People like spring because it’s a time of rebirth and rejuvenation, but I have never felt rejuvenated by warm weather or longer periods of sunshine. It’s always been quite the opposite, actually. What most people consider to be “beautiful weather”, absolutely drains me. And the birth of new flowers and leaves and things, literally makes me sick. Sometimes it’s honestly downright difficult to be outside in the spring.
But, the thing that gives me hope, the thing that rejuvenates me, in its way that would probably sound sick and twisted to anyone else, is the promise of spring’s death. Perhaps it is terribly morbid to look at something that has just been reborn unto the earth and look forward to when it starts to wither and decay, but I simply feel more alive during the time in which everything dies.
Spring is a time of new beginnings. It’s the beginning of the life cycle that will ultimately bring about another fall.
For some, spring is the new day, but for me, it’s the very start of the promise of a new day.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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