We're getting to that time of year down here in North Carolina when spring feels like it's just a whisper away. We fall asleep with the windows open and wake up to cool air loaded with the scent of fresh rainfall. Ender comes in from the sidewalk with paws that are always chilly and damp and smell even more like corn chips or buttered toast than usual.

I have been saying "it was a hard year" for longer than I can remember--I think it's been more than just one. But the promise of spring brings with it hopes of new beginnings--of tender green sprouts shooting upwards despite the long, cold winter that laid on top of it for months.

A few weeks ago someone I hadn't spoken to in years reached out to patch things up, and I didn't realize it at the time but now it feels a lot like a small piece of myself has found its way back into place.

Funny how that happens, right when you need it.

“and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful”

— [in Just-] BY e.e. cummings

I'm ready for you any time, spring.

The other day Rob and I were walking home from lunch at the Thai restaurant in our neighborhood when I surprised myself by wishing for autumn. Charlotte has been muggy and hot and although I usually make it until the fourth of July before I start wishing the summer away, I really kind of meant it in that moment.

But then big, fat, cool raindrops started falling from the sky and thunder cracked off in the distance, and the warm sidewalks sizzled with that wet pavement smell that only happens in the spring and summer, and when we got home I peeled off my wet clothes and crawled under the covers of our unmade bed, listening to the rain come down until I fell asleep.

And I remembered that spring is full of a magic that can't be rushed.

“This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open —
pools of lace,
white and pink —
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities —
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again —
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?”

— Mary Oliver, Peonies

There's just something about a rainy spring day at Smith Mountain Lake, and I got about three of them last week. The smell of wet grass outside, an early morning haze on the water and a light mist coming down in the afternoon; and cup after cup of hot tea; sitting with my mom at the big dinner table by the window.

It's sleepy and hopeful and full of high school nostalgia--I somehow miss it already and couldn't wait to get home to Charlotte, all at once.