The Pulse of Spring

Spring now more warm sun
teases tulips daffodils
still hints frost ice snow
(rla)

Well the sun showed up today, but not the spring temperatures you would expect. Complaints about the spring season are numerous. But here in the midwest, what others call spring doesn't show up till May. British author Frances Trollope expresses our human impatience with this season in the yearly cycle:

The American spring is by no means so agreeable as the American autumn; both move with faltering step, and slow; but this lingering pace, which is delicious in autumn, is most tormenting in the spring. (Domestic Manners of the Americans 1832)

Thoreau, who lived in a candle-light age, suggests a different rhythm to our interaction with the natural world.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring.
If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature—
If the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep,
If the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you—
Know that the morning and spring of your life are past.
Thus may you feel your pulse.
(Henry David Thoreau, Journal entry February 25, 1859).

I wonder how difficult it was to be an insomniac before electricity, TV, and now the instant internet. More recently, lack of sleep was viewed as an element of individual prowess and stamina. Now its just plain unhealthy, and linked to obesity, increasing glucose intolerance, and blood pressure problems. This all makes me think its time to open a bottle of evening antioxidents and toast the arrival of Spring...