Sunday, April 03, 2011

Mountain Spring

Once I loved the spring.






And by that, I mean precisely once. It was my freshman year of college, after my first real winter. Growing up in California I was fairly indifferent to seasons, and unaware that I was indifferent to seasons, and so my first year in Utah was a real experience. In the fall I was amazed to learn that leaves don't just change color in movies, and in the winter I took pride at being one of the few BYU Californians who didn't complain about the snow and the cold,* and in the spring I was completely blown away when all the trees and bushes burst into blossom.

Yesterday I walked my dog in short sleeves. It was seventy-something degrees outside and sunny and beautiful. People were out working in their yards, kids were riding their bikes, and I was happy. But I've been around seasons long enough now to know that spring can't be trusted. Spring has freak snow storms and wild temperature fluctuations and cold rain and allergies. The sporadic sunshine and the flowers and the green grass and lengthening daylight still make me feel happy and hopeful, but the way to June is like driving on a long, winding, bumpy, carsickly beautiful mountain road.

* This may surprise you. But it only lasted one winter, and then I stopped lying to myself and everyone else.

2 comments:

Elizabeth Downie said...

Pretty pictures! But evil spring.

Abominable's Main Squeeze said...

When we saw the outside shots of conference yesterday, dad was certain they were taken a while ago. Not so apparantly. Beautiful pictures! The great thing about spring is that the snow doesn't usually last long enough to shovel.