This is the time of year when I start spending time outside. The cold has broken for good. It is almost April 25 when the weather isn’t too hot or too cold and all you need is a light jacket. The point is it really is pleasant to be outside. That is where I found myself yesterday. Standing in my backyard pondering the azaleas, and thinking about how grateful I am to live in a world with such simple beauty.
This is the season of rebirth, and not just because of Easter, but because it is the time of year when the world is waking up. Coming back to itself. My uncle used to tell everyone that his favorite season in the mountains wasn’t fall, but spring, because you got the colors but they were the colors of life and not death.
Life is about transitions. We live in rhythms. Every now and then shedding our skin and walking into a new order of being. The very nature of the world around us reminds us of this. The world sheds its skin every year. Flowers bloom and die, and are reborn again.
I love the azaleas because they are only with us for so brief a time. The same could be said of many spring blooms. Like the cherry blossoms or dogwood flower. It is these brief founts of color that make our lives what they are, and when given the chance to reside among the azaleas we should take it. When we can walk the path of the cherry blossom we should do so.
We should live our lives to their fullest. When the colors of our lives present themselves to us do not shy away. Our days are brief but our joys are many. Find those joys and take advantage of them while you can, for soon the azaleas will wither and die, and we will have to wait for another of our ever diminishing springs to be among them again.
David Huzzard Writes 