spring times

For some reason, springtime always prompts a kind of reminiscing of the different places I've experienced it, my favorite season.

Toronto springtimes I should know best. Spring was Easter Sunrise Service at the Exhibition Grounds, and coming back to the church gym for hot drinks. It was the cautious shedding of winter gear until that cruel April (or May...or June) snowstorm blasted it's way through the city and you were forced to don the trusty Mountain Equipment Co-Op Gore-Tex once more. Slow-coming, but when it comes--that smell, the steady trickling of melting snow, the emaciated squirrels scampering around Queen's Park--it is glorious!

Spring in Shanghai, like the fall, was precious because both of them held the few comfortable weeks of the year, weather wise. It was plum blossom festivals, photo excursions with RW to find the "real Shanghai", and planning May Holiday vacations--like our backpacking trip to Yunnan, "land of eternal spring". It was when our students were finally allowed back outside to roam the Living Quarters on their rollerblades and skateboards, when they would ring our doorbell (it was impossible to hide where you lived) to see if I'd go play with them or admire some crazy gigantic praying mantis they were holding captive.

In Boston, spring was running along the Charles River, me going one way, the crew teams going the other, with pink blooms and lines of poetry (Emerson and Frost, posted on wooden signs) dotting the route. It was begging for extensions on all four final papers, and then wishing the professors had just said no. It was celebrations with the BYOP youth after long months of campaigning for cleaner school bathrooms or some similar cause. Spring was when I roamed the city on a bridal shower scavenger hunt, from Chinatown to Fenway Park--thanks to MC.

Springtime in New York is gone before you have time to search for the right trench coat and rubber boots. It's trips to the orchid show in the Bronx, and admiring the tulips pushing their way through the median of Park Avenue, the long branches of willow and cherry being sold at every florist and corner store. It's the return of al fresco dining on every inch of sidewalk that can fit a chair and table--even if that chair and table are facing a dumpster. Spring last year, was saying goodbye to too many friends all at once and the beginning of our relationship with Tanzania.

Who knows what the Tanzanian springs will be like?

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(Photo by K. Brummit)