Portents of Spring: Skateboarders Return to the Open Space
By MIKE NORTON
Forget the returning geese in their honking multitudes. Forget for a moment my eager noontime search (still unrewarded) for the first nodding purple crocus. The first signs of spring in Traverse City are inevitably human ones.
On Tuesday, as warm winds blew suddenly across the Bay, turning the ice to slush and melting the gray crusts of roadside snow, the people of Traverse City began emerging from their long psychological hibernation. Sleeves were rolled up, car windows were rolled down. The sidewalks along Front Street were suddenly full of people – and their faces were suddenly full of smiles. Folks were greeting complete strangers with the ritual greeting of the day: “Isn’t this weather WONDERFUL?”
By early afternoon, girls in cutoffs and boys in sleeveless t-shirts began gathering down along the shore at the city’s Open Space Park The first skateboarders of the season began practicing their winter-rusted moves, and a few spring-addled youths made clumsy gestures of courtship, responding to seasonal urges they seemed only dimly aware of.
People get downright giddy on days like this. It’s a Northern thing — a phenomenon incomprehensible to those who live in places without a discernible change of seasons. (I know, having lived in California, Florida and a few other earthly Edens where there really isn’t anything remotely similar.) No matter how lovely the winter, there is something in the human spirit that yearns patiently for that warm breath of spring air and rejoices to feel the earth relaxing from the iron grip of ice. It constantly amazes me how happy we are in March to get a 40-degree day, when the same temperature would send us shivering indoors in October. If nothing else, winter is an excellent device for reminding us to count our blessings.
Tuesday, by the way, was no 40-degree day; I think it actually hit 70, and those of us not in cutoffs and t-shirt were actually feeling a little overheated. There will be rains ahead, I’m sure, and perhaps even some snow. But something in our hearts has now shifted; something in our eyes has brightened. From now on, none of the inevitable little betrayals of March will dissuade us from thoughts of cookouts, gardens and walks along the sun-warmed shore.
Soon will come wildflower hikes in the woods, the sweet scent of spring beauties, and the hunt for those delicious morel mushrooms.
It’s a good thing. The strong, old things almost always are.
Tags: Grand Traverse, Michigan, Traverse City
