1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
|
<!doctype html>
<html amp lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Another Spring</title>
<link rel="canonical" href="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2016/03/another-spring">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1,minimum-scale=1">
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/>
<meta name="twitter:url" content="/jrnl/2016/03/another-spring">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="This becomes a day like any other that is somehow different. Then another and another. Little things. The air feels brighter. The river is lower. Less practical footwear appears on feet around you. The mornings are crisp and the pollen hasn't started yet."/>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Another Spring"/>
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:image:src" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/post-images/2016/spring-01.jpg"/>
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:site:id" content="9469062">
<meta name="twitter:creator:id" content="9469062">
<meta name="twitter:description" content=""/>
<meta name="geo.placename" content="Athens, Georgia">
<meta name="geo.region" content="US-GA">
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Another Spring" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2016/03/another-spring" />
<meta property="og:description" content="This becomes a day like any other that is somehow different. Then another and another. Little things. The air feels brighter. The river is lower. Less practical footwear appears on feet around you. The mornings are crisp and the pollen hasn't started yet." />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2016-03-20T02:08:26" />
<meta property="article:author" content="Luxagraf" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Luxagraf" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/post-images/2016/spring-01.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/bees-garden_2015-04-01_140134_1170.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/potluckchicken_1320.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_01_1320.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_02_1320.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_03_1320.jpg" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "BlogPosting",
"headline": "Another Spring",
"description": "This becomes a day like any other that is somehow different. Then another and another. Little things. The air feels brighter. The river is lower. Less practical footwear appears on feet around you. The mornings are crisp and the pollen hasn't started yet.",
"datePublished": "2016-03-20T02:08:26",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Scott Gilbertson"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Scott Gilbertson"
"logo": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "",
"width": 240,
"height": 53
}
}
}
</script>
<style amp-custom>
body {
font-size: 1rem;
line-height: 1.73;
font-family: Georgia, serif;
background-color: #fff;
color: #333;
padding: 1em;
}
nav {
font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
max-width: 60em;
margin: 0 auto;
}
main {
max-width: 60em;
margin: 0 auto;
}
main footer {
text-align: right;
}
a {
text-decoration: underline;
color: #c63;
}
nav a {
text-decoration: none;
text-transform: uppercase;
color: #222;
}
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {
line-height: 1;
font-weight: bold;
}
h1 {
font-size: 1.5rem;
color: #666;
}
h2 {
font-size: 1.125rem;
color: #555;
}
h3 {
font-size: 1rem;
color: #444;
}
h4 {
font-size: 0.875rem;
}
h5 {
font-size: 0.75rem;
}
h1 a, h1 a *,
h2 a, h2 a *,
h3 a, h3 a *,
h4 a, h4 a * {
text-decoration: none;
font-weight: bold
}
code {
font-size: 0.875rem;
font-family: "Courier New",monospace;
}
pre {
white-space: pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;
}
blockquote {
font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;
font-size: 0.875rem;
}
blockquote * {
font-style: italic;
}
blockquote * em {
font-weight: bold;
}
blockquote * strong {
font-style: normal;
}
hr {
border: none;
border-bottom: 0.0625rem dotted #ccc;
}
.hide {display: none;}
</style>
<style>body {opacity: 0}</style><noscript><style>body {opacity: 1}</style></noscript>
<script async src="https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<nav>
<a href="https://luxagraf.net/">
luxagraf</a>
</nav>
<main class="h-entry">
<article class="h-entry hentry post--article" itemscope itemType="http://schema.org/Article">
<header id="header" class="post--header ">
<h1 class="p-name entry-title post--title" itemprop="headline">Another Spring</h1>
<time class="dt-published published dt-updated post--date" datetime="2016-03-20T02:08:26" itemprop="datePublished">March <span>20, 2016</span></time>
<p class="p-author author hide" itemprop="author"><span class="byline-author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="name">Scott Gilbertson</span></span></p>
<aside class="p-location h-adr adr post--location" itemprop="contentLocation" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
<span class="p-locality locality">Athens</span>, <a class="p-region region" href="/jrnl/united-states/" title="travel writing from the United States">Georgia</a>, <span class="p-country-name">U.S.</span>
</aside>
</header>
<div id="article" class="e-content entry-content post--body post--body--single" itemprop="articleBody">
<p>This becomes a day like any other that is somehow different. Then another and another. Little things. The air feels brighter. The river is lower. Less practical footwear appears on the feet around you.</p>
<p>The mornings are crisp and the pollen hasn't started yet. The trees still bare though the smaller shrubs turn purple and white. Everything feels fragile but possible again. </p>
<p><amp-img alt="Bumblebee on bright pink flowers photographed by luxagraf" height="624" src="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/bees-garden_2015-04-01_140134_1170.jpg" srcset="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/bees-garden_2015-04-01_140134_2280.jpg 2280w, https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/bees-garden_2015-04-01_140134_1170.jpg 1170w, https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/bees-garden_2015-04-01_140134_720.jpg 720w" width="1170"></amp-img></p>
<p>It might not last. It's possible another snow storm is yet to come, but you have to cast your lot with some version of the future. </p>
<p>And then the pollen does start. The world coalesces out of its dream state into great lime green clouds of oak and pecan pollen. A world of runny eyes and burning lungs. It's awful for a week to ten days. Then the catkins fall in great heaps that mat in the corners of the deck, choke the gutters and require a rake to get out of the yard.</p>
<p>Then the clouds of pollen disappear and you know summer heat is only a week or two away. This is how it goes around here, year after year. It typically starts a bit before calendar spring. I'm not good with dates though. I'm not good with time actually. Unless I have a deadline. </p>
<p>Human are the only ones with deadlines. Spring comes when it comes. </p>
<p>There is the spring equinox. The plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun with admirable regularity. It might not mark spring precisely, but from here on out there's more light in the day than darkness. </p>
<p>If you whip out your stopwatch you'll notice that the length of day and night aren't <em>exactly</em> the same, but then if you're the sort to whip out a stopwatch for holidays probably no one is going to invite your to their equinox party anyway. It's close enough. It's something to mark, somehow. </p>
<p>One of the unfortunate side effects of not being religious or subscribing to any particular religion<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> is that you have little to mark. Days and months slide by. Changes proceed largely without us or without our marking them in any way. Secularists don't have potlucks.</p>
<figure class="picfull">
<amp-img alt="Child eating chicken at potluck lunch photographed by luxagraf" height="1081" src="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/potluckchicken_1320.jpg" srcset="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/potluckchicken_1320.jpg 1320w, https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/potluckchicken_680.jpg 680w" width="1320"></amp-img>
<figcaption>Secular potlucks? Chicken!</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the wonderful things about the internet though is that it makes communities possible that would otherwise not be possible. No church to attend every Sunday with the same people? No problem, start a Facebook group<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>. Profit. Or at least potluck.</p>
<p>Which is the world's longest intro to we went to an equinox party and easter egg hunt with a bunch of fellow secularists. And it was great. There was even old school climbing equipment of the sort children could take real risks on. I'd like to attribute that to the lack of religion present, but that would be stretching it. I think it was just some playground equipment that time forgot.</p>
<p><amp-img alt="girl climbing up a steep ramp photographed by luxagraf" height="883" src="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_01_1320.jpg" srcset="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_01_1320.jpg 1320w, https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_01_680.jpg 680w" width="1320"></amp-img></p>
<figure class="picfull">
<amp-img alt="two girls climbing steep ramp photographed by luxagraf" height="883" src="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_02_1320.jpg" srcset="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_02_1320.jpg 1320w, https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_02_680.jpg 680w" width="1320"></amp-img>
<figcaption>If your twin sister climbs something, there's no way you aren't going to do the same.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was an egg hunt as well, though my children are a bit young to get too into it. They are far more enthralled by the own anticipation of a thing than any thing itself. Actually maybe that's not something you grow out of, I think I'm the same way. The potluck was good. It had chicken. It marked a thing, a change, or the symbol of a change, that the weather sometimes aligns with, sometimes does not. But it lacked a certain gravitas.</p>
<figure class="picfull">
<amp-img alt=" photographed by luxagraf" height="884" src="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_03_1320.jpg" srcset="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_03_1320.jpg 1320w, https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/equinox-party_03_680.jpg 680w" width="1320"></amp-img>
<figcaption>A couple of sticks, some water, hours gone.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not that spring has much gravitas. But there is a certain violence to change, even seasonal change, that seems like it's worth a pause, however brief, to reflect. The snow melts, the rain falls, it all goes somewhere. Water cuts through red Georgia mud. Trees are washed from banks. Rocks tumble down to sand, slow canyons carved a bit more every year as the silt and sand rolls down from the Appalachia to the sea. The mountains themselves are changing, getting smaller, their sides steeper. All this change destroys what came before. </p>
<p>We like to paint spring as something that emerges out of winter, something that grows up from some blankness, and it does from one perspective, but we overlook that it destroys what came before. There is no change without destruction and decay. It's possible to recast that destruction in pretty words, but it is always destruction, especially from the point of view of what came before. It would be interesting to hear what the caterpillar thinks of the butterfly.</p>
<p>I'm never going to get the collective solemnity of ceremony without religion though. I know that. That sort of gravity comes from larger groups of like minded people than I will ever find, even on Facebook. For now I'll settle for potlucks.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr/>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>The sun god religions obsess over rules, power and control when we all know potlucks are what matters. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2">
<p>It'd be a whole lot cooler if Facebook wasn't the mediator of anyone's community, but for now that's where the people are so that's where the communities are. Just remember that the <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/">people behind Facebook</a> are true <a href="http://deoxy.org/wiki/The_Johnson_Family">Burroughsian shits</a> and act accordingly. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</article>
</main>
</body>
</html>
|
