Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Welcome, Spring

Ah, Spring. Mother nature awakens, spreading light showers to dazzle the fertile soil and an eager sun to warm the hills. Either that... or ice-cold rain pelts down on us under grey skies and 35 degree weather (as is the current situation).

I've been back in Elgin for the past few weeks. I was really sad when I got back. Honestly, I think I was a little depressed for a few days. I guess all the flak I've been getting from people to have a firmer direction in life finally caught up with me. I realized that I was still living with my parents, didn't own anything, hated my job, had about six friends, just came from a "paradise" climate to a cold wasteland, and nothing was going to change for at least a few months.
Bummer...

Well, the circumstances are the same, but I am feeling better about myself. I talked to my sister and she told me to wisen up and remember the good things about the Midwest, the things she misses. Secretly, I wanted her to come and see for herself how miserable it was here. Then I went to Wal-Mart and unexpectedly realized what I'd been missing.

The greenhouses were open! The seeds are ready to plant! Everything grows in the summer! Odd to find it at Wal-Mart, but I'd completely forgotten one of the most critical things about Spring: it isn't about the weather. The weather is still horrible. It's about the anticipation. Everyone knows Summer's coming and is preparing for the wilderness to explode into a mass of green foliage. One thing people living in the tropics don't understand and won't understand until they experience it is the immense anticipation one gets from Spring after living through winter, especially one abnormally cold as the last few months.

So I've been scavenging the local stores and bought a plethora of seeds, ranging from sunflowers to pumpkins, and I'm actually going to follow through with it. It's been about five years since I've had both a backyard and Spring weather and who knows when I'll have this again, so I'm taking advantage of it while I can.

(Reenactment)

I know what you're thinking. Basically not much has changed since Hawaii, I'm just feeling better because I distracted myself with vegetables. Yes, that is exactly what has happened. I wonder how long this will last.

If you hear of any avaiable, cool job/volunteer opportunities, let me know!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You think spring in Illinois is about anticipation, try it in Moscow. They start getting excited at New Year's (Jan 1: Yay, it's a new year, spring is almost here!), then Old New Year's (Jan 14: Yay, now it's really a new year!), then Maslenitsa (The week before Lent starts: Yay, it's really really a new year and winter is ending—let's throw round pancakes that represent the sun at a burning effigy of winter!), then the first day of Spring (March 1 by the traditional thinking here: Yay, we declare it Spring! We've just got a month and a half of winter-like weather and then we're home free!), then Easter (Yay!!!!!! Spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Great entry and photo, by the way. It articulates how people can get so excited about cold rain.

Rachel Plunkett said...

Jacob, Come get a job and work over here. Spring is overrated. I took a break from the house to pick up pizza (yeah, great break) and it was raining. In spite of the rain, a bunch of surfers were surfing 50 yards or so off the shore across from 7 11. Not sure what the point was in that, not getting much sleep. If you live here, you could plant things in the jungle some my call my yard.