Spring

I never liked Spring. The snow would begin to melt, allowing the earth to seep muddily through like blood through a too-thin bandage. What had been expanses of ice became puddles deep enough to overwhelm our uncomfortable rubber boots. Gumboots were a good enough reason to dislike a season. replacing warm, cozy, felt packed winter boots with sloppy, smelly boots that slapped our calves raw with that distinctive galumphing sound. Just the sight of them made my stomach tense. They always came off at the exact wrong moment, and no matter how I tried, they constantly ate my socks. When that moment came, off balance in the newly revealed mud, that moment when my hands were full, when my boot was stuck and I had to make a quick step to keep from falling over, it would be a mostly bare foot landing in the still frigid muck, trailing a sock from my toes like a ridiculous ribbon. Once you get righted and your boot free, it's decision time. Slide that mud covered foot into that boot or hobble back to the house wearing only one boot. Either way, the garden hose was going to be involved, and your sock would never be the same. Small wonder Mom always bought the biggest, cheapest packs she could find for me.

There was nothing to do outside in the Springs of my youth. The ski trails were abandoned when the muddy spots got too large to dodge. The roads were still covered in a Winter's worth of sand and gravel. Even as a kid, I realized the irony that the stuff that gave cars traction all Winter was so slippery on a bike in Spring. Roller blades were out for the same reason. We couldn't ride our bikes on the trails either, because where there wasn't stubborn snow hanging on, it was just mud. Not the kind that you ride through and it sprays up and you get home sweaty and gloriously dirty, but the kind that simply swallows your tires. The back yard became treacherous as the treasures our dog had deposited over the Winter months, hidden by snowfall after snowfall, thawed and froze and thawed and froze and morphed into puddly ghosts of turds past.

I always found it impossible to dress for the weather in Spring. It would still be frosty in the morning, it might still snow all the way into May, but it might also be sunny and warm enough for a T-shirt by the afternoon. I'm told that even modern fashionable men have a hard time dressing for Spring, trying to balance old school rules with their desire to retire the Winter threads and unpack the warm weather wear. Seems like a bit of a made up problem to compound the real one, that the temperature might vary 25 degrees C in a given day.

As an adult, I live in a more temperate clime, where snow is a rarety, monopolizing conversations when forecast and causing frequent traffic accidents when realized. Spring comes early to these parts. The days never get as short as they did when I lived at home, so they get longer faster. My tulips are already four inches out of the dirt, and by early March, it will be uncommon to scrape frost from my windshield before driving to work. Trees here are much more showy about Spring, throwing out pastel petals so enthusiastically that a walk in the park feels like a cartoon movie set dreamed up by a nine year old girl, all puffy and pink.

Spring was never a colourful time when I was growing up. Brown and gray in infinite shades, and an achingly slow fade to green. It is a wonder more people did not put brighter colours on their houses, but I suppose in the 80s and 90s most people reserved bright colours for their clothing. Here, I expect to be walking in surreal clouds of pink, yellow, and purple by Easter no matter how early it falls. Half the vegetation here stays green all year round anyway, even my lawn. Actually, my grass is greener in January than it will be in July, since I won't pour potable water on the yard. I'll be tired of mowing said grass by May.

There is a lot to be said for Spring now that I'm grown and live in more hospitable country. I no longer own a pair of gumboots, or felt packs for that matter. Don't pack away the umbrella, but keep the camera handy if you like pictures of flowers. Cycling is less likely to be fatal, the sky is already lightening by the time the dog and I are back from our run, and the garden is ready for early planting. There is at least a month of good skiing left, probably more. Spring is good.

New shoes

I bought my first pair of running shoes this weekend. That's not quite right. These are the first running shoes I've paid for myself. I've bought dress shoes, casual shoes, hiking shoes, and climbing shoes for myself, but never running shoes. My last pair was the last pair of shoes my parents bought for me. I was in my first year at college and running like a madman, but giving myself tendonitis by doing so in shoes I'd had since junior high. It was Spring of 2000 when Mom and Dad took me to the mall and bought me proper running shoes. I put hundreds of miles and several races on those shoes in the intervening 13 years. A seam in the instep burst almost immediately, making them much more comfortable, but last week they finally broke beyond repair.

People had been giving me a hard time about my shoes for a while already. Apparently you are supposed to replace running shoes every couple of months or after every third run or some such nonsense. I figure as long as there is still rubber on the bottom and the laces still hold, they are probably fine. The tendonitis didn't come back, so why spend money on shoes I only wear in the dark to run through mud? Rosie doesn't care what's on my feet as long as I take her out every morning.

Minimalist running shoes are the "next big thing," but I think it makes sense. Our bodies are built to run, so why strap pillows to our feet to do it? It just leaves the foot weakened and more susceptible to injury. What doesn't make sense is how much a "minimal" shoe costs. By definition, I bought less shoe, but because it is toxic green and trendy, I still paid the same as a cushy shoe with super duper nano air spring technology. We'll see. I wasn't about to buy those ones with the individual toes. That's just gross. Still, I don't have high hopes of them lasting 13 years, though that did seem a bit much. Five miles in, so far, so good. They were my first pair of shoes to come with a warning that they may cause injury if used too much to start. We'll see.

Change is coming

My parents are moving at the end of this month. Their house is sold, half their stuff is already moved, the rest is packed. Dad is retiring after 32 years of public school teaching. They will be moving away from the town they never meant to move to, let alone stay in. As it turned out, they built a life and raised a family there.

In some ways it seems like someone is dying. They have been going around doing things "One last time." Skiing the local alpine mountain, driving by their first house, visiting people they may not see again, remembering. They are excited about the move, being closer to family, not having to shovel nearly so much snow, but when we talked this week I thought all three of us might cry.

We talked about that first house, the climbing tree (story in process), and the street out front where I learned to ride a bike. The neighbours still live there, their children also flown from the nest. Before I left home, I spent my winters cross-country skiing. We started out at a golf course, then at a provincial park, then finally our club was able to put in dedicated trails with a proper warming hut. We all helped, marking out trails, clearing brush, putting up the building. Our family was heavily involved and deeply connected with that club.

I've been away more or less since high school, and each year my connections to that little town have faded a little more. Friends have moved away or drifted into acquaintance-hood. I know maybe half a dozen people at the church I grew up in. With my folks living there, there has always been a reason to return and a place to stay when I did. I can't say when the next time I'll visit will be. Maybe one day I'll have kids of my own to take on a road trip and tell boring stories about what used to be in that old building. That house I helped build when I was 13. When that whole hillside was just trees and I would run around building forts and spears with my friends and my dog. The old sledding track has been gone for years already, but we spent hours hauling sleds up that hill and building jumps at the bottom.

I worry that my memories of childhood will fade and distort without occasionally visiting those old places. It's as though one of the last ties between who I was and whom I will be is being cut. "Where I'm from" will slip ever deeper into myth. I've never had any intention of moving back; it was a fine place to grow up and to visit, but I don't want to live there. I don't think I expected or even wanted things to stay the same as they have been. Nothing wrong with looking back now and then, even if the old things seem so far away as to have been perfect. The view forward is dim and hard to make out, but it is coming regardless. It should be an interesting year.