The Questioning Librarian

I think I only just noticed on Friday that it was spring. Yes, there have been a few warm and sunny days this past month, more than welcome after the endless night of winter, but they seemed illusory, like it was too good to be true just yet. When I left the apartment that morning, there could be no doubt that the season had arrived. The scent of the air, the small warmth of the breeze, and the morning sunshine meant spring, for certain. I noticed how green the grass was, how without noticing it the trees had all started budding and blooming. My drive north to State College for a meeting was an endless panorama of mountains turned green, with brilliant dots of purple, scarlet and white revealing the blossoms of spring among them. I finally planted flowers today, turning a desolate patch of weed into a more attractive plot of ordered flowers, and while my back aches from the work, I always feel at home when I'm working with plants, rare though that may be anymore.  For over ten...

As the snow melts, the mud piles high and the days gradually grow lighter, a sense of relief is growing within me as I know that the time is near where winter meets its death. The human spirit grows lighter as the darkness lessens, and I begin to long for the latter days of spring and of summer, with all its assorted activities that I so love; bike riding, lawn mowing, cooking outside, tending to flowers and vegetables, watching my herbs grow large and green, reading on the deck with a cup of coffee in the late morning or in the evening, watching the fireflies, walks with the dogs. The oppressive dominion of mind and body by the winter season is finally broken, and at this point in the year, I'm so thrilled to see winter's retreat that I feel happy enough to go stick a maypole in the ground and dance around it, no matter what the neighbors would think. What I most look forward to at this time of year is gardening, when Persephone returns from her time in Hades and fair Demete...