OPINION

Mullis: The call from the sidelines? This spring is good.

Nicole L.V. Mullis
For the Enquirer

One of the great things about living in Michigan is we have four distinct seasons.

Nicole L.V. Mullis

Sometimes.

Winter tends to overstay its welcome and summer often shows up early, cheating spring. But not this year. This year’s spring has been spectacular.

Take it from me. I’ve become a connoisseur of spring.

My daughter loves soccer. My son loves baseball. Between the two of them, I’ve been on a ball field or a soccer pitch every spring since 2004. That’s 3-4 evenings a week, for 3-4 hours at a stretch, March to June. Gauging by my snow-pants-to-sunscreen method, our last few springs have been rushed. One week we’re freezing, the next we’re roasting, and somewhere in-between the world goes green and there are mosquitoes.

That is not a proper spring.

This year has been more gradual. Most evenings, I will start a doubleheader in short-sleeves with my pant legs rolled up, and end it in my winter coat with my knitted hat pulled low. I’ve opened my umbrella for the mist, but then left it open for the sun.

This is spring weather, the kind that makes it a sin to sit indoors and a sin to forget your gloves.

We’ve had rain, but not snow, and never enough to cancel a game. This has made the grass come in slowly, first patches, then stretches, then dotted with dandelions.

During pre-game warm-ups or halftime or after-game huddles, I can hear birds. The season started with one stray note, then a trio, then a chorus. One week I saw a fat robin, the next a bright cardinal, the next long-necked geese. Not all together, but one a time, like they had separate arrival dates.

The tree line catches my eye every game, as if it’s autumn but in reverse. First, the black limbs seemed to soften. Soon, a rash of barely perceptible color ran up each trunk and over every twig. Now, I can’t see limbs at all, their privacy regained in tiny leaves of lime, lemon, and pink.

I know summer will make all the leaves large and green, but summer’s not here yet. For now, each tree calls attention to itself.

Traveling the two-lane roads has been turn-off-the-radio striking for weeks now. Believe me, I know. Most teams we play have fields by two-lane roads. The trees have rebuilt their arched tunnels, bud by bud.

Driving over bridges, the swollen rivers and creeks catch my eye, making me aware of light dancing on the water. The inland lakes went from black to blue, a trick of April sunshine that has lasted all month. I remember driving over these bridges last spring, but I don’t remember the light show.

The flowers are striking. Not the deliberate annuals planted by patient gardeners in their yards, but the causal chaos of Mother Nature on the roadside – a stray daffodil, a wondering tulip, a sprinkling of crocuses, a riot of untrimmed forsythias. Uninterrupted by a winter snap or a summer surge, I’ve enjoyed these blooms for weeks, not hours.

And that’s how I know this spring is spectacular. It has been long enough and temperate enough for even stress-heads like me to notice.

Normally, I spend halftimes and between-game breaks in my car, slurping cold coffee and working on my laptop. I love watching my kids, but it’s still a weeknight with work-week demands. This spring I’ve been leaving the laptop in the backseat, stopping only to grab my knitted hat during breaks. I’d rather slurp my coffee outside with the sights and sounds of spring.

Nicole L.V. Mullis is the author of “A Teacher Named Faith”. You can reach her at nlvm.columns@gmail.com or www.NicoleLVMullis.com.