A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident

I ask too much of spring.  “Please, no more snow,” I ask in March. After this is granted, there are always a couple of final, last, heavy, wet flakes that barely survive their landings. Then I ask for temperatures high enough not to have to use our wood-burning stove. 

Next I ask for the ground to dry, so I can put aside snow boots for hiking boots. When the crocuses and daffodils and hellebores appear, I confess the joy they give me is less than they deserve, because they sneak up on me before spring has truly arrived. I think of them as I do spring training baseball games, to be appreciated more for what they anticipate than for what they are. 

Then that “April showers” thing sets in. I get it. It rains a lot. We need the rain. The rain is good. Could we get even one day with a bit of sun? Apparently not. 

Even after the rains thin a bit, I’m still not happy.  No leaves. As long as the branches are bare, winter lingers, day after day. Waiting for spring around here can be more depressing than enduring winter. When can we sit on our deck in the early evening? 

Very gradually, almost subliminally, I notice a haze of color on the trees. Light green, or reddish or purple buds seem everywhere, replicating spring’s protracted uncertainty. Some buds open immediately, others take days. This can vary even on the same tree or bush. Since the budding of trees is nothing less than the way they reproduce, little wonder it takes so long, is so uncertain, and doesn’t respond well to being observed. 

Each day the colors are more apparent. I drive down to the valley, on a cat medicine run. Whoa! Spring has already arrived down here! Apple blossoms! Impressionist swatches of color cross the mountain distances. 

I return to our mountain with faith restored. How curious that what we wait so long for, that seems so agonizingly gradual, can appear to us to have arrived all at once.