THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503190052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
I can see spring from here.
It's right through the room where I sit writing this column, into the next office, through the slats of that Venetian blind.
As spring goes, the view is not spectacular. A TRT bus idling in front of a bus stop.
But it's enough to give me the fever. The blue sky seems to burst through the top slats.
I sit here thinking I should be out in it. I must own a piece of spring. I must have it in large, unmeasured doses. I want to bury my face in spring. I want to run headlong into the season and not come back inside until it's winter again. Which could be tomorrow.
But I can't.
The last time I remember such an unfettered season was the spring before I went to kindergarten.
My best friend, Dale Matteson, was a year older than I was, and already in school, leaving me to run the rites of spring alone.
I didn't mind. That year I explored the underbelly of our back porch by myself. Found all manner of bugs and buried treasure and even a giant marble of red, green and blue swirls. Buried it again in the garden and lost it for good. Dug up a whole row of corn looking for it.
I built elaborate cities in the sandbox. Played a solitary version of chalk-the-walk. And conducted my own scientific study of the best and most sturdy branches of the apple tree.
All of which was dutifully reported back to Dale when he got home.
I made a lot of mud pies that spring. Made them by the dozens. Molded the black soil into patties, stuck sprigs of grass and wild flowers in the middle, then set them on sawhorses along the sidewalk to the school, which was right across the street.
I sat them there so the kids walking to and from school could see.
Wanted to impress 'em.
Because something about the children trooping in and out of the big brick building intrigued me.
I wondered what they were doing in there.
Dale would come over after school with absolutely wild tales of glue bottles big enough for all the class to use, all the toys you could think of, a Kleenex box for every kid, mats for naps. Big Chief tablets, pencils, water fountains, and get this, recess.
Recess. I had no idea what it was but it sounded fantastic.
The next day I'd sneak over to the schoolyard, my knees scuffed with dirt, fingernails gritty with sand, sweet smell of sun in my tousled hair, and look through the slats of the school's Venetian blinds. I'd imagine all the wonders of that inside world. Couldn't wait to get there; couldn't fathom what corner of outside I had left unexplored.
After that spring, of course, I'd spend plenty others looking out the other way, thinking of all the meadows and porches and ditches and trees and alleys and holes I'd somehow missed.
Still wonder what happened to that marble.
Spring would come in smaller doses after that, but no less sweet ones. There would be after-school games of hide-and-seek, track meets in high school, carefree spring breaks in college and a maternity leave where I played in the sun with a soft-skinned baby.
Now I sit here looking through the window at spring. But soon I'll go home to children whose hair smells like fresh air. Their knees will be black with dirt, their shoes full of sand.
And I'll feel the joy of unbound spring all over again. by CNB