What Spring Reminds Me Of

In England now it feels like a Michigan spring to me, because I have always thought of the beginning of spring as embodying all of spring. Spring is Lent; by the time it's Easter, it's summer already. Spring is the time when I can't quite go without a coat, but I'm always a little too hot with one. Spring is the time when I wish that I played a sport so I could be outside. One spring night while I was taking an astronomy course, I noticed that Olivet's annoyingly bright lights weren't on, and so I lay on my back in the grass, looking at the stars.

Spring time always makes me think of the rosary ever since I became Catholic. The first Lent that came around when I knew I wanted to make the change, I gave up getting a ride home from school, and while I walked home, I prayed the rosary to myself. I can remember the excitement when I had finally gotten all the prayers memorized and said my first "real" one. I remember that I usually made it all the way down the very long Clark St. and crossed M-15, and then I was done by the time I had passed Central Elementary school. The field across from Central is in my mind one of Davison's unappreciated blessings, much like the woods that surround the high school. Even though so much building is going on in Davison, we still have plenty of trees and fields; it's a wonderful town.

Spring time makes me think of non-natural things as well. I remember my Pink Floyd obsession of last year, when I listened to practically nothing else, and then when my mom bought me a legal copy of "The Wall" while I was sitting home bored for spring break. I remember the time that I spent reading during all those spring-time months of middle school and early high school, when I went to the library and checked out the next book in the science fiction series I was reading and "Crime and Punishment", too, and I only ended up reading one of them. I remember when I was in sixth grade and I came home from school and realized I didn't have to wear a coat, and I stayed outside just for the sake of it, and I sat up in the swingset reading "Robin Hood" for the tenth time, imagining I was one of the merry men. I remember taking a bike ride with a friend last year, borrowing a bike from an RA, seeing places I'd never seen. I remember last year when I took my dog out for walks because the weather was so beautiful that I couldn't stand it anymore.

But my memories are muddled sometimes, too, with those moments in mid-winter when it feels like Spring, but I know it's too early. I remember taking my sister to a basketball practice in some distant land during one of those times, and I sat in the car with the window down (or am I confused?) and read Plato's "Protagoras" straight through and thought it was the greatest thing I had ever read. I remember during that time reading the first book of Spencer's "Fairie Queene," and I remember my family being confused about what could possibly attract me to it: but it's just Robin Hood all over again, even down to the way he spells things. And now I know why I'm taking a Middle English class and why I love it so much more than the Romanticism class that should appeal more to a time of natural wonder: because Spring time for me is a time of Robin Hood and sitting in trees and wishing vaguely for adventures and greatness, and the ancient language reminds me of a book I read so many times so many years ago and loved so much, and I might have forgotten that if I hadn't been walking down the street in Oxford today, praying the rosary and paying more attention to the cold, crisp air and to the beautiful green grass and to the rocks and trees and castle-like buildings than to the sufferings of Christ.

I might have forgotten if I hadn't been sitting in my room today enjoying reading "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and even enjoying writing on it, while I listened to "The Wall" and while the sun was so bright. Spring time reminds me of other things, too, like the excitement and strangeness of taking a walk through town with my first girlfriend and the joy of taking my cousins on a bike ride and of the strange and ugly chunks of snow that still refused to melt. I remember how much fun I had doing a ridiculous group project with a great group of people for Mrs. Herfert's class, and how much fun we had walking around downtown with a camera and filming a train going by. I remember the profoundly strange act of getting a take-out pizza and going to a park with a beautiful girl. I remember climbing onto the roof of the Catholic school using the bike rack as a ladder, while I was in college. I remember two Easter vigils and how they didn't seem long at all, and I remember going to Richfield park with a girl I didn't deserve, and I remember riding around on a scooter before they were the trend they are now and pretending that it was something akin to the car from "Knight Rider." I remember all the band trips, too, going to San Francisco and New York and Chicago. I remember asking for "The New York Times" at a newsstand in that city. I remember the Muir woods and trying to stay off the trail as much as we could while still following it, "taking the high road." I remember taking a short band trip in middle school and drawing comic books one way and sitting with a girl the other.

I remember doing so many stupid things, but I remember being happy, and one day I'll say that I remember walking through Oxford on a spring day, half-praying the rosary, disappointed to have to go into the library, and I'll remember writing about it and telling the whole world, because I had to.