Signs o' Spring

   Everybody talks about the first robin  (Turdus migratorius) of Spring, and indeed it is a sight we all look forward to. But there be many other harbingers of the season, bringing the promise of warmer weather and good times outdoors.  Now let me say this about the groundhog: his legendary forcasting skills are basically the stuff of a hyped-up media event and has nothing at all to do with the arrival of Spring. You all know his handlers drag the marmot out of his den each February 2nd to determine whether or no he sees his shadow. With all those spotlights and cameras in his face, how could he see anything?
   Nevertheless, soon after that, his cousins the 'Possum and Skunk creep forth from their winter sleep to become roadkill on our highways and byways. That unmistakeably pungent odor of dead skunk is a sure sign Spring is on its way!

   A bit more pleasant herald of the coming season is the ever-so-slowly inching up of the sunset past 5:00 pm, on its way toward 5:30, 5:45, then...... Maybe one of my favorite days of the year: Daylight Savings Time ends!!! Dark afternoons and evenings are over! Yay! I don't care about some sleepy-eyed marmot seeing his shadow, I wannna see MY shadow after dinner!

   How I love to see the snowbanks and ice-sheets recede little by little as they revert to their proper form of liquid water! Revealing all those fall leaves and debris from broken branches, as well as the regular garbage no one has picked up since October, wait, is that GREEN  I see? Fresh growth of moss and weeds?
   And look! The neighbor is taking down his Christmas decorations! Woo-Hoo!  Then as the ground waxes warmer and softer,  do I detect the first few sprouts of those bulbs I planted last fall? YES!! Soon we'll be treated to a show of purple, yellow, white, and blue as the crocus come into bloom.

    Now Readers, I do realize that technically speaking,  St. Patrick's Day is actually the final winter holiday.  Technically schmechnically, this is my blog and I say St. Patrick's is the first Spring holiday! Why do ya think they call the soap "Irish Spring"?  Whatever, I don't care, I just know that when I see shamrocks and green bowler derbies everywhere, Spring is almost here! Erin go Bragh! And I don't need some fancy DNA test to tell me I've a wee bit o' Irish blood runnin' through me veins!
   Anyway, those of you who know me are aware that my favorite seasons are Summer #1, Spring #2, Autumn #3, and Winter dead last at #4.  So it is with joy I behold the demise of that dark, cold, snowy, icy, carb-loaded, weight-gaining, boot-wearing, snow-shovelling, pot-hole  hitting season called Winter. Me being a New Englander of Scandinavian descent, you might suppose I would love the winter. And you might need a slap.
   No, this time of year when the sap starts flowing again and the maple trees get tapped for their precious treasure is a welcome relief to my weary eyes and soul. Enough white and grey awready, I wanna see blue skies and green grass! Do ye think I like taking cough syrup and carryinig tissues around?

Crocus!

   One of my fondest memories as a kid was of my old elementary school, Center-Annex in Seymour, Ct.  From my first-grade classroom, we could see out front where a forlorn Chinese cherry tree would blossom to life in a flurry of pale pink petals bursting out among the silvery-black branches. Our Art Teacher even had us portray the blessed event in construction paper.
   Good-bye, Winter! And good riddance! See ya next year!

   The signs o' Spring are everywhere now, and they're some of the things we love about life.
   

Coming Home

   You walk up the steps, turn the key, open the door and march into your sanctuary, tossing your keys and the mail non-chalantly onto the table, you peel off your coat, sit down, and breathe a deep sigh of relief as your little friend dog or cat ambles up to meet you: you are home!
   Probably my favorite part of the day is my drive home from work! Leaving all the ado of work behind, and getting back to that special place where I belong!  So what's the difference between going home and coming home? Well, you are "going home" even if you haven't even left yet: just having the opportunity and making the choice to do so is "going home". You have to be at least halfway there before you're coming home...
   Whether you're coming back from work, a trip, visiting relatives or friends, or just running errands, what could be better than that moment that you're in for the night? When you can relax and just be you! A place to refresh and revive, a place as unique as you are. They say home is where the heart is, but really home is the place you build around your heart.
   I recall years ago, when I was working the night shift and got home around midnight. That little apartment I rented in Naugatuck had some type of night-blooming flowering vine growing on the trellis beside the porch. That delicate fragrance welcomed me home each night!
   Even if you've had the vacation of your life, and spent the last few weeks in wonderful surroundings  with amazing people, is there anyplace like your own bed? Wendy and I honeymooned in Montego Bay, Jamaica and were sad to leave that last day. But still, when that plane touches down on the tarmac, and you find your car and jump back on the road home, what else matters?
   You can dine on the finest, most sumptous meals the world has to offer in the classiest restaurants, but hey, a cup of coffee or a bowl of ice cream in your own kitchen is a whole other level of comfort! "Homeward bound: I wish I was." "Take me home, Country Road" "I feel so broke up, I wanna go home." It's the primordial, archetypal cry of the human soul.  Wheresoever we journey in this world, near or far, coming home is the best part of the trip!!!
   Travelling back into Connecticut from New York City and points south, we head up the Merritt Parkway  across the Housatonic in Stratford....soon appears the Heroes' Tunnel, letting us know we're almost home.  Forget all the rest of the drive behind us, when we pass through that tunnel, we are in our own backyard, and mere minutes from home.
    Home! Drag all the bags in from the car, and drop them in the hall; we'll unpack them another time. Right now we're home! Kick off your shoes and do whatever else ya gotta do, we're home where we do what we want to do! If we want to crash on the bed and zonk out for the next five hours, who cares? We're home!
   What better feeling is there?
   It doesn't matter what problems, issues, bills, or  business await us there, home is home.
   Home is where we grow, where we live, where we heal, where we dream.
   Doesn't matter if it's a house, apartment, condo or whatever: it's home. 
   And of all the things we love about life, I love coming home the best.

Milestones

   On our journey through life we celebrate many varied milestones along the way. Some we can't wait to attain, some we can't believe we've reached; others come upon us inevitably despite our hopes and wishes! Some are natural, part of the physical, mental, and emotional maturation process; others are cultural and societal rites of passage.
   What little toddler, for example, can't wait for his or her first trip on the big, yellow school bus? Of course, once they reach the kindergarten room, they cry and bawl for Mommy and home!  What child doesn't dream of one day being a big kid, and carrying books to school like his teen-aged siblings?
    I remember in my middle school years (formerly known as "Junior High") all the Catholic kids buzzing about this mysterious passage of Confirmation. Being a Protestant, I had no clue what was happening to my classmates.  The one Jewish kid I knew, of course, had his Bar Mitzveh.  So the sole middle school initiation I endured was locating the nerd table in the cafeteria. Oh, and having to bring for Gym  Class that article of Personal Protective Equipment  known colloquially as the Jock Strap. 
   High school brings a few more milestones. Latina girls and their families celebrate their fifteenth birthday in a Quincinera, while in other homes they treat their daughters like a princess on her Sweet Sixteen.  Senior Prom is another big rite of passage.  I missed mine, being an introvert and socially ignorant. The excuse I give now is that I couldn't go because Wendy was just in second grade at the time! Senior Week is probably one of the best, most care-free weeks of your life....and one you'll never have again. Graduation... what can we say... the biggest rite of passage for every teen-ager, introducing you to that foreboding place called "The REAL WORLD"  (sinister laughter).
   Another great rite of passage comes with getting your driver's license.  But as the folkhero Peter Parker famously noted, "With great power there must also come...great responsibility".    Yeah, responsibility.
   Seems like each of these milestones and passages keeps heaping more and more of that resposibility stuff on us!
      I recently had the opportunity and privilege of attending my son's graduation from Boot Camp at Parris Island. Now a military graduation is not at all like an academic one with all its speeches, but instead demonstrates discipline with precision, synchronised movements.

    Another big milestone in your life is getting your first own place. This is such a huge life event I'm going to devote an entire article to it.  Leaving Mom & Dad's and setting up your own home is like what all these other things were leading up to. That, and, of course marriage.  When you go from being me to being us. 

   Your Wedding Day  is a huge milestone and rite of passage, worthy of all the pomp & ceremony that go along with it.  Remember Senior Week? Your Honeymoon is sorta like that, only way better!

    A milestone a lot of people would like to avoid (but really can't) is that 30th birthday.  It's not so much thirty they dread as what comes after. But all you twentysomethings out there, thirty ain't so bad. From where I stand it looks pretty darn good! Forty, and Fifty, ya just kind of take in stride, knowing you can't stem the flow of time. 

   The birth of your first child is also a major milestone, again putting you into a whole new world. But wait, there's more: one day you become a grandparent, and your identity and role changes again.

    Life milestones after that begin to get suckier, like the passing of your parents.  Retirement, with all its pluses and minuses. Then one day, the death of your spouse, and widowhood. Finally, the culmination of all these things, and your body just stops doing things it's supposed to do.....and you see your day is coming.

"...we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years  are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their stength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."

   So wrote Moses in the 90th Psalm.

   Inevitably comes that final waymark, when your mortal remains are all dressed up in that wooden box for all your family and friends to come and view one last time. And somewhere in that funeral parlor may be a collage of photos marking those many milestones you've met and mastered along your way.  Life is beautiful, from conception to death.

   And milestones are another of the things I love about life.