By Kim Dare.
It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain
I am either fortunate or strange, but I like every season in it's own way. Cwtching up under a patchwork blanket on cold nights through the winter. Summer dresses for the few warm days that grace the UK during the summer. The turning of the leaves in Autumn.
But spring is possibly my favourite.
This year more than any I can remember, I can feel that spring fever Mark Twain talked about bubbling away inside me. I want to do something, but I don't know what. I want a challenge, a change, a... just a something!
I want to get out pencils and start sketching again.
I want to dig out every poetry book in the house and remind myself of all the different verses I've been too busy to remember lately.
I find lyrics to a dozen different songs racing through my head at inappropriate moments, and I want to sing them out loud for no good reason.
Story ideas are flooding in too, and I want to write every single one of them - RIGHT NOW!
Patience and spring don't feel compatable right now, but do you know the most bizare thing of all? I also feel more relaxed about everything than I have for... for I don't actually know how long.
I want to do more things than I can ever get done in twenty life times. But right now, on the cusp of spring, every single one of those things seems possible. And maybe even more than that, it seems possible to do it all and still find time to just enjoy the journey.
I still haven't picked up a sketch pad, and I won't inflict my singing on you, but one of the poems I've been reminding myself of seems quite appropriate, so I will share that.
Leisure by W. H. Davies
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Have a good spring everyone - and be sure to let me know if you are feeling the fever too :)