Spring
For years I have contemplated writing an essay about Spring – or, more precisely, an essay about what Spring means to me. And for years I have resisted. It has seemed too great a task. It has felt beyond me. For I realized to write about Spring is to get to the very essence of what made me become a writer in the first place, what made me want to travel in the first place…the very essence of what makes me me in the first place. Well, I’m still resisting, and it still may be beyond me. But here goes. Where I live, Chicago, you see Spring first. Its harbingers are myriad manifestations of light. The first shine on our apartment wall in late February, refracted off the high rise across the street. Then, a few weeks later, come the golden shafts of dazzling sun when it’s clear, the muted, dreamy pastel washes of blues and grays when it is not, the subtle, lingering haze at dawn and twilight, the way the moon shines cold and warm at once. Often I see this light through