photo by Jenna Starr

It’s springtime. Spring stirs in me a feeling of anticipation along with a feeling of unsettledness. What does the future hold? Left turn, right turn, which way? I love the days of good weather and I start to get too much sun for the first time in months and months. I feel that springtime sense of hopefulness, and I get overwhelmed by all that lies ahead. Pacing, pacing, I remind myself. Savor the gorgeous days, when they are here, slow down and enjoy watching the birds voraciously discovering the trees and buds. Enjoy the longer periods of light at the beginning and end of each day. Don’t wear yourself out by trying to do it all.

My family and I are most likely moving this summer, from D.C. to Connecticut. We probably won’t have much of a garden this year, but I still feel like tossing some seeds out onto the dirt, at the very least. At this time of year it doesn’t feel right not to put one’s hands in the dirt for at least a bit. Maybe I’ll optimistically plant cucumbers and let them spread out all over the garden and take over, knowing that we’ll move before there’s any produce to be had. (Barbara Kingsolver has a wonderful essay about this in her Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book — about planting asparagus, which takes at least a year to produce any actual asparagus — in some patch of dirt outside every home she’s lived in, even temporary apartments she knew she wasn’t going to be staying in long enough to see it produce. I think about that all the time — is the planting for the purposes of its end result, or simply for the purposes of planting? Do we garden for the product, or for the act of gardening?

What does the springtime stir in you? Are you outside today? What calls you out into the beckoning world?