Spring!

Historically, I never enjoyed Spring. It wasn't a season I looked forward to at all. In high school, there was never enough time to even notice it: water polo ran full-steam through mid-May, and then came final exams, AP tests, and all the other end-of-the-school-year activities. In college, I had the space to pay more attention to those three months, but didn't like what I saw. You might think I'd appreciate some warmer temps after a long, bleak Midwestern winter, but April and May are proof that crappy weather can exist on a sliding scale. (I may be unfairly biased by April of 2018, which kicked off with two weeks of freezing rain.) Instead, I always looked forward to June as the harbinger of sun and fun.

In the past two years, I've done a complete 180. Spring is neck-and-neck with my other favorite seasons (i.e. everything but Winter is looking pretty good right now). I guess it helps that I have more to look forward to: hunting for Spring ephemerals, catching as much of the Spring bird migration as possible, nice weather for biking, more interesting subjects for photography. And the cherry on top? Ann Arbor's so far West in its time zone that in June the Sun's out til almost 10pm. It's not even the end of April and we have light until after 8:30pm.

Rue anemone, probably my favorite Spring ephemeral

A screech owl that was snoozing in the trees outside my apartment this month

If I had to sum it up while trying to not be terribly cliche, I'd say that Spring brings back a sense of wonder into my life. After a long absence, there's suddenly so much going on that you can't possibly catch all of it. It reminds me of cramming as much as possible into a Summer vacation: finding time before or after work to get some photography in, discovering new bike routes, prepping my garden for the year. And yeah, as I write this all out I'm aware that it sounds like a pharma commercial for some new geriatric medication. I'm an old soul, I guess, and I'm okay with that.

April through June, there's so much I want to do that I become actively aware of how much I'm missing. It's like trying to bail out a rowboat with a dixie cup: the more you scoop out, the more you notice how much is left. I get out to the woods before work as often as I can— usually a few times a week— to take stock of which wildflowers have appeared since my last visit. There's so much to see that I never end up catching everything, but the joy is in the chase, I suppose. In a somewhat perverse way, being so consumed by Spring has made the season fly by even faster. And it was even worse this year, my first in Ann Arbor. As much as I love the nature preserves strewn throughout the Chicago suburbs— and there are a lot of really awesome ones, for those who aren't yet aware— at our new place, I can walk three blocks and, if I've timed it well, bear witness to a holy congregation of yellow trout lily, rue anemone, violets, geraniums, and many other lovely ephemerals.

Yellow trout lilies at a natural area down the street

A bee preparing to go to town on some bluebells in my backyard

Bloodroot, with its short-lived flowers and awesomely weird leaves

Hell, I can see half of that within 15 steps of my front door: colonies of virginia bluebells, yellow trout lilies, and bloodroot thrive within a stone's throw of my apartment. And it's not that I live in some special nature sanctuary or something; Ann Arbor's small/not-overdeveloped enough that some of these plants still maintain strongholds in unlikely places. I found the trout lilies along the fenceline under some probably-exotic shrub, chugging along. The bluebells sprang up on the edges of the driveway, even growing in a mere inch of leaf litter that's built up over the pavement. And the bloodroot has somehow held its own amidst an invasion of honeysuckle. For me, it's pretty special to live somewhere with such awe-some surprises.

I mean c'mon, this was in my backyard for chrissakes. And I didn't even have to plant it!

I'm very excited for this summer. Michigan— and the Midwest more broadly, in my experience— really comes into its own starting in June. But while there's still a chill in the air, I've got plenty to keep me occupied, and I'm thankful for that.