spring awakening

Today, I saw two things that I really needed to see.

The first was random. I personally can't believe I saw it... but I did. My eye couldn't help but catch it.

I was in rehearsal for my current show (shameless plug: "i google myself" at WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Festival... running March 5, 8, 12 & 13!). During the course our tech, I had a lot of down time backstage. At one point when I was waiting for a cue to be brought up, I was standing by the exit door. The play is being produced in a black box theatre, so everything is painted black (and it's a box shaped room, thus the name... which sadly exhausts most of my theatre knowledge). As I stood there, I could see the daylight fighting to break through the black doors that held it back. The biggest gap between the double exit doors was at the bottom. There, where the brightest light was piercing through, I could see green.

Against the black, the color stood out profoundly. In fact, it looked so green that for a minute, i didn't think it was grass. I thought perhaps a green mat was outside the door or maybe the concrete was painted green (I'm not sure why anyone would paint concrete green, but I was just running scenarios through my mind). I bent down to get a closer look through the hole in between the doors. It was. It was grass... green and bright.

As I stood there, waiting for my cue, surrounded by black and darkness, my eyes were attached to the small spot of light and green that I saw.

Then, when I came home, I had to run to the back ally. My damn garbage bin that the city provides doesn't have its back wheels so whenever the slightest breeze comes along, the stupid thing falls over since it's not balanced. Some days I just let it lie there, but if it gets too far into the ally, then I try to set it up right again so my neighbors won't curse me (although, if they did curse me, it would probably be in Spanish and I wouldn't understand them anyway, so it probably wouldn't matter that much.)

When I first moved into my house a year ago, I planted a tree in the backyard. I thought it would be great to have something mark this big start in my life. Plus, I wanted something visual to see the time I spend here; with so few things available to provide a visual representation of our time in this world, I thought it would just be nice to have something I did show growth-- especially when there are so few days I demonstrated it myself.

Being my first time to plant a tree, I was afraid I did something wrong. Maybe the hole wasn't deep enough. Maybe I didn't water it enough. Maybe I should have covered the base of the new tree during this past winter. Maybe I should have fertilized it more often. I mean, that first year, it was looking kin to Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Then, when winter came, like all other trees, it lost its leaves. My fear was that I had not prepared it enough to survive the cold weather... that when spring arrived, it wouldn't come back. Sometimes, the winter can be so hard that there's no life left for the spring.

Heading out back to pick up the garbage bin, I started in a run. I just came back from a workout so the wife beater and gym shorts that I had on were not quite the clothes I needed to be wearing in the 40 degree weather. I quickly passed the tree, set up the garbage bin and started my jog back, and then I stopped.

Leaves. There on my skinny, Charlie Brownish tree were leaves. Not just one or two but several. Many. Lots. Lots of leaves were beginning to form and bloom on my tree.

It survived the winter. It continued to grow. It was dressing up for spring.

If I had just seen one of those things in one day, I probably wouldn't stop to think about it. But, seeing them both in one day, it made me think. It made me notice. It gave me hope. I too can and will survive whatever winter I face... this one and others -- because there will be more winters, but there will also be more springs.

Today, I am just thankful to be reminded of the spring awakening.