There's just something about a warm, sunny day after a long, cold winter that makes us feel like we should be outside. And in my neighborhood, just being outside is not enough. The minute the air starts to feel a bit more welcoming, there are leaves to be blown out of places they managed to hide all winter; there's fertilizer to be spread; there's planting to be done; there's mulch to be put down; and there are big projects that have been incubating for months. Actually, the little hamlet where I live has the name "Forest" as part of its name, with good reason. It was a planned community whose builders had the good sense to design it within the existing woods, rather than first removing the woods. The bottom line is, where there are trees, there are leaves aplenty, and they never, ever seem to be gone. Not that the effort isn't made to banish them.

So when I let Pip out for the first time this season, she tentatively hopped onto the back porch landing and took it all in--the light and the warmth, the breeze lifting the branches of bushes and making shadows dance on the sidewalk, the sounds that her sensitive ears could pick up that mine could not. A feast for one who had only the scenery of the inside of my house to look at for months. She found a sunny spot to plop down onto and rolled on her back--ah, yes...it was all coming back to her. She looked up at me--"come on, it's great!" I followed her onto the porch and took it all in as well. Yes, once again, this invisible, mysterious, powerful force had been quietly working behind the scenes all the dreary winter and managed to produce this. I felt no less a part of the renewal that is spring. I am decidedly different than who I was going into fall.

Then my eyes started to adjust to the brilliance of the morning. And I began to notice things that Pip did not. My stone patio was starting to become a sunken stone patio. Stray branches and sticks littered the yard and flower beds (euphemistically, or maybe optimistically termed, as there were few flowers or even the promise of them in sight), An overturned wheelbarrow with a flat tire loitered by the woodpile. And then there were the leaves (amazingly, as the great de-leafing effort had lasted into December..) And the familiar, insidious anxiety. There were things that I should be doing!! At which point I realized I was faced again with one of the most basic challenges of life when one is not having to spend every waking moment scrambling to survive. And for this blessing I am grateful, to be sure.

So I bring up this challenge not as a complaint or even a whine. I bring it up merely as an observation. The forces exerted upon us to constantly be doing something are tremendous. Many of us were taught if not consciously, then at least by example, that it is a good thing to be doing something--pretty much all the time--or we are in fact wasting time. And once we absorb this lesson, we don't realize the power it has over us. In fact, of all the isms that we can be afflicted with, workaholism is the one that is least recognized to even be an affliction. It's the affliction one can actually brag about, because after all, there's so much to show for it.

But the actual truth is that with all my talk of being vs. doing, I too plan to get out in my yard and acquaint myself with it this spring as part of the overall transformation I have mapped out for myself--at least walk the property and take a little look-see, especially in the far corners, which border on a little wilderness between the back of my yard and that of the neighbor behind me. Maybe even plant something--we'll see, as I do recall a few years ago planting an heirloom tomato plant my son had given me and realizing that the soil had the consistency of small boulders.

And I have other, more ambitious plans, too! Such as? Well, such as returning to my dance roots and signing up for some kind of sultry Latin dance class, finally taking a painting class, cleaning out my garage, going on a cool trip somewhere, making how-to videos about hanging art, reintroducing myself to my guitar, losing thirty pounds, and just generally being the most fabulous version of myself I can possibly be, you know?

The point is, I actually want to do all of this stuff--it has nothing to do with any nagging "shoulds." It's just really hard to resist the energy of Spring, and so I just surrender and go with it.