The explosion and scatter of Spring in the North.

And in the shift of a day, spring has arrived. Like an ingénue who discretely sneaks in, late for the party, yet before you know it, she has taken over the whole scene.

We move from snow to the deep purples of crocuses, blanketing the little windows of valleys here and there. The smells of the sage, the spruce tips, the juniper, the grasses, the rain, and the dirt, envelope you, and it becomes impossible to stay inside. Making it feel as though I haven’t smelled anything other than wood smoke for years. Desperate to walk on some dirt and ground that doesn’t sink or slide beneath my feet.

Suddenly there are more birds than I ever knew was possible, owls hoot all night, falcons swoop and line the roads and the valleys as if there were one assigned to every square kilometer of land. More tiny birds pile up on my little stumped bird feeders than I even know the name of. Suddenly it is not just the ravens, which I do love, but now there is an orchestra of competition in the fields and the forests.

The snow and ice melts at rapid speeds causing the streams to go into this kind of chaos that is exactly how I feel in Spring. As though they want to be everywhere at once suddenly, like a flood of ideas and energy that has lain dormant and now it has to make up for lost time and be everywhere at the same time, with 15 more ideas waiting at bay for a spare moment to grab attention. They flood through the forests and cut away from the banks that kept them flowing in one direction last summer and fall. Now, never mind the banks, the boundaries, the specific direction, the game is on and it’s time to let the chaos flow through until it decides which direction it would like to focus it’s energy for this year.

Yes, they may be a moody lot, and, Spring and her entourage may be late, but she has arrived, and I am definitely swept up in her joy, energy, and utter mayhem.