I can let my breath out. 

Since October or so, I’ve been holding it.  Tense.  Frenetic.  The holidays.  The winter.  Illness. No respite.  Certainly no hibernation.  But now…I can exhale. 

I blame it on the time change.  On work.  On any number of things, but I sleep this time of year.  The sleep of the innocent.  In long stretches under a goose-down duvet.  Deep sleep where I inhale the cool nights and exhale the warmer days.

The greening of Appalachia is my time on the calendar just as this place is my spot on the planet.  I never had a favorite season if you don’t count school years and summer vacation until I was hit full in my psyche with my first Appalachian spring.  May, Memorial Day weekend, 1974. I was 14.  I remember the gobsmacking.  I never had a favorite place until this geography invaded my soul.  The mountains wrapping me in comfort like a goose-down duvet on a cool night.

The inconsolate beauty of the mountains in new greenery does bring tears. It’s a sight to behold even if you did grow up with it.  Even after fifty years of Appalachian springs.  They are never routine.  Never ho-hum.  They command attention.  The forsythia, the daffodils, the magnolia, the pear trees, the redbud, and yet to come this year, the blackberry. 

Manicured lawn with an explosion of color in town.  Wild free-form landscapes out here.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, (yes, really) white and yellow daffodils out my kitchen window.

I remember planting them.  I bought 150 bulbs for naturalizing from one of those mail-order nurseries with preprint ads in the Sunday paper.  I duly planted each and every one in heavy clay with a tablespoon of bulb fertilizer and a ¼ cup of composted manure. 

Thirty-five years ago. 

They have doubled and quadrupled and carried on.  The incessant reproduction of spring.  Each year.  More.  And more until now.  I drive up my hill after a frenetic winter.  After a long day at work.  I round the curve.  The trees thin and there are my daffodils on the hillside.  Nodding in the west wind of a spring breeze.  The white pear tree petals scattered on the ground.  The purple redbud highlighting the nascent green of the forest.  The azaleas readying for bloom.

I can breathe when the earth can.  Winter is over.  Full technicolor. 

“Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my close up.”

And I am.  It is a time for renewal.  For breeding.  For birth. 

Hallelujah.  It is spring.