By Jenni Murray
I can hear the birds chirping. I can see the flowers blooming and feel the weather warming. And my calendar is getting so full, I fear it may combust.
It’s as if the whole world is beckoning us to sit outside and take in the splendor that only spring can offer, yet we pack the spring months so full of must-dos that we miss it every single time.
For parents, spring is quite the sneaky season. You’ve gotten used to the hustle and bustle of the fall. You remember how to squeeze in the homecoming week dress-up days and pumpkin patch trips, and you’ve learned exactly when to shop for Halloween costumes so your kids won’t have time to change their minds. You expect the chaos that comes every December as you prepare for the magic of the holiday season.
But spring? Spring swoops in every year and kicks my butt before I even realize what’s happening! It’s spring sports, spring break, Easter parties, school projects and finals, end-of-the-year parties, graduations, festivals, teacher gifts and more. I promise myself each year that I’ll make time to stop and smell those roses that are finally blooming again, but I find that time just doesn’t want to stop.
In fact, the only time in recent memory that I feel like I gave spring its due was in 2020, when COVID shut down the world. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, of course. There was legitimate anxiety about our health, our financial wellbeing and the daily torture of distance learning. They were scary and uncertain times, but I still remember them fondly.
The weather was perfect and stayed cool just a little longer than normal. The days were sunny. My husband and I planted a little vegetable garden and some lemon trees. My boys and I planted milkweed plants and lovingly cared for a ton of monarch caterpillars. We had little to do, so we watched them as they left the plants to cocoon and even got to watch the chrysalis process from start to finish once. We watched them emerge and fly away and shed a tear for the one that never came out of that chrysalis.
We had picnics in the backyard. We cooked more. The boys even got really into bird watching and would bike around the neighborhood following an owl.
We soaked up every last second of that spring, and, honestly, it was glorious.
It seems that the lessons we learned from that season passed all too quickly from our memories. We were quick to fill the calendar right back up and skip the gardens and picnics in favor of everything from sports to parties to long-awaited trips. I suppose that was inevitable, and of course, I’m grateful for the waning days of the pandemic. However, all of that hand washing, sheltering in place, gardening, caterpillar raising, bird watching and bike riding broke us out of the hypnotic lure of busy. It reminded us that something wonderful could come out of something so scary.
So this spring, don’t forget to take the time to be with your family enjoying the sights and sounds that only this season can offer. Don’t forget to move your meals outside and skip the occasional event to plant that garden. Don’t let the busyness of life make you miss the beauty that the world wants to show us here and now.
There is magic in every season, but there is a beautifully simple, healing magic in spring.
Jenni Murray is a social worker turned stay-at-home mom who lives in Pascagoula with her husband and their four sons, ages 11, 8, 6, and 2. When she’s not doing laundry or refereeing little boys, she hides away to write for therapy and is a Gulf Coast Mom contributor. Reach her at jennijmurray@gmail.com.