Come Fly With Me

Does Spring make you nostalgic? It does me---I want to fly away on a breeze, dream a little dream, and warm my bones to the toasty sunshine that precludes the heat of summer. Spring, so soft, so fresh, so full of hope makes me ache with yearning and I don't have a clue as to why. Not really into yearning. Don't even like the word itself---it sort of gets stuck in your mouth, and yearning steals from the present. Still, yearn, I do. Maybe I'm homesick for something I don't even remember, and Spring casts a sort of deja vu spell. Like meeting a passing, wonderful stranger for the first and only time, yet knowing you've known them, or the essence of them before--and then they are gone--- like the Spring will be; and I'm missing them before they've even left. It happens to me every year. But then summer arrives in all its splendor and I'm full-throttle, happy as a lark-----life is good. This annual longing that's appeased only by the fullness of summer puzzles me. But we are after all, creatures of light, dependent upon the sun, and need it like grass needs water; so maybe the bright Colorado summer brilliance is what burns away my melancholy and makes me forget the perfect, but fragile glow of Spring . Summer, so raucously full of life, invites us to her party, and to dance in the sunlight.

Whatever it is, I wait impatiently for summer every year and it is then that I'm finally, not only happy, but content. The blue and yellow colors of the sky and sun paint my days, making them feel all brand new. The long, hot days melt rewardingly into warm nights that invite you to slumber with windows open, fans gently blowing, and blankets tossed aside. I'm sure the original paradise was permanently warm. Cold is just wrong.

Maybe your heaven is a hiking trail, a day on the golf course, a cool morning in your garden, a sultry evening walk with someone special , or maybe even just the rhythmic sounds of a water sprinkler. Don't you love water sprinklers? And wouldn't you just love once again to run through those million sparkling flecks of water, especially when they make rainbows? Whatever your summer pleasures are, they are just around the corner---but, blink, and it will be fall again. If you don't believe it, watch the sun as it sets on a summer day---it's racing with the moon. Relish it all, eyes and heart wide open.

A word of warning: Don't get too attached to those heady warm days---like flying too close to the sun, you can get burned. Summer, as loving and fun as she seems, is not faithful. She will betray and leave you over and over again; and she will take her golden hours with her---off to see her other lovers. For me, the autumn season, as lovely as it is , will not replace the giddy, carefree joy of summer. But then, maybe we are not meant to be summer happy all the time----would it somehow speed our hearts beyond its alloted beats, over-stress our circuits, and blow our fuses? Guess that's what seasons are for---to remind us that this is not paradise, and that nothing lasts forever. So, I will not yearn any longer for summer. It's just a season, after all, and who needs a season for a reason to be happy? I will float in the gentleness of spring, mellow out in the fall, wrap myself in the coziness of winter, and not even think about how it feels to soar in summertime happiness, but for now ---- I just heard a water sprinkler---excuse me, I've gotta run----