Spring is a time of year, perhaps more than any other, when I have highs and lows. Having grown up on a farm, it brings to me thoughts of new growth, the smell off the earth freshly plowed in preparation for planting. The smell of honeysuckle and locust trees in bloom, the moist woods and the musk of mushrooms. A time when today may be sunny and warm, but tomorrow rainy and cold. But however uncertain the weather of Spring may be there is always the hope and certainty that as time passes there will be more sunshine than clouds and more warmth than bleakness.
In other words, this is the time of year when my emotions take a roller coaster ride. This last week has certainly been an extremely wild ride indeed. Last Sunday afternoon it was sunny and warm here as Marcia and I walked along the banks of the Roanoke River. I didn't realize how much sun my legs were getting until Monday morning, when the redness from my knees to my ankles stood out in contrast to the whiteness of my thighs and feet. My outlook on life is always positive at such times. My soul is at peace when, in the early evening I can watch the lengthening shadows of the sunset, catch a glimpse of sunlight still on the surrounding mountain tops, and feel a gentle warm breeze on my skin as I enjoy daylight softening on our patio or balcony. Those are the good times for Marcia and me!
Then, more quickly than the good feelings, came death and destruction. I watched with sadness welling up in my eyes as the television pictures showed the widespread devastation brought across the South by the worst outbreak of tornados in this country since 1925. At such times, one feels so helpless, as indeed we are because we are at the mercy of the forces of nature, of weather, earthquake, tsunami; the power that gives us such pleasure at the beauty of mountains, valleys, oceans, rivers, sunsets and sunrises, must inevitably also give us the sorrow of destruction, loss of property and life. Then at the end of the week our TV screens were filled with pictures of beauty and love, of a Prince by the simple act of marriage giving a beautiful young lady the title of Princess. Life promissing renewal.
My emotions take similar rides as I read. I guess that is a major reason I do so. I was lead to "Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell after having recently watched an episode of Anthony Bordain's "No Reservations". Bordain was in the Ozarks, experiencing the life and food of the hunters and fishers who live there. He had come there because of his liking of the writings of Woodrell, who was his guide during the filming of that show. "Winter's Bone" describes the determination of a sixteen year old girl - her dad who "cooks crank" out on bond but missing, her mother who sits as her mind drifts in and out of reality - trying to keep her young brothers in school, fed and clothed and away from the drug society which surrounds them. Rural poverty.
Then I saw where the 2011 Pulitzer for fiction had been awarded to Jennifer Egan for her book, "A Visit From The Goon Squad". The characters in the life of Sasha, bound together by their involvement with her or the music industry, their struggles to grow up, each with a "pause" in their life, which either they survive to become better or just live through, or sadly do not. I think we all have pauses in our lives. I hadn't thought of life that way before, but it is somehow comforting. Like a pause in a song, a short time to reflect, and then it continues.
How much more precious life is when we acknowledge how fortunate we are to have survived the pauses. God help and be with those who are less fortunate than we.
