Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503080016
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S TIME TO ESCAPE FROM WINTER

It hasn't been a bad winter. But, because we've been holed up too long inside the house, I see every little sign of spring as part of a growing web of connections.

I do the same thing every year, glad to be outside, anticipating warmer days.

Walking down to get the mail, I find a solitary coltsfoot blooming at the edge of the road. There still are patches of snow around it, but I prefer to see this earliest wildflower as a sign of spring rather than the snow as a sign of lingering winter.

Though I know it's too early, I've been watching the bird feeder for the first signs of our returning winter migrants.

I scan the sky for scarlet tanagers. No sign of them, of course.

The titmice and the chickadees are there, though, as they have been all winter. Along with the juncos and the woodpeckers.

There are changes here, but they're subtle and hard to spot. For instance, the cardinals do seem to be a richer red.

Consulting my guidebook, I learn they begin their mating songs in February, earlier than any other bird that visits our feeder.

This could explain the bright plummage; though, admittedly, it's hard to see much difference from their usual color. It may be wishful thinking on my part.

Surprisingly, seeking the signs of spring on this hillside, I also find a deeper connection in myself. I see that this has been a day for sending down roots of my own. It is a day of probing for the bedrock inside, reaching for what sustains and supports me.

I always look forward to these days on the cusp of winter and spring. On the occasional warm afternoon, we raise the windows and prop open the doors, spreading onto the deck and into the yard. We sit in the porch swing and dreamily contemplate the view.

Cooped up in the house all winter, I'd forgotten my real connections to our home. I have to be reminded that we are a part of the land on which we live, and are not meant to be isolated from it by the confining and misleading security of fiberglass insulation, wood and shingles. Properly considered, our sense of home is defined more by the land around us than it is by the four walls of our house.

Likewise, because we get our water from the earth beneath our feet, we are reminded of our connection to it every time we draw a bath or drink a glass of tap water.

While I've been known to be slower'n molasses in January, it doesn't take a genius to get the point.

We are a part of this wooded hillside, and it surely has become a part of us. I wouldn't trash it up any sooner than I'd dump a bag of garbage in my favorite reading chair.

I may be a half-bubble off plumb, but I ain't stupid.

Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.