The Spring Feels

With the spring season, I am overwhelmed with nostalgia. I’m not sure why. Spring is not my favorite season, not by a long shot. Sorry spring, don’t take it personally. I reminisce on this nostalgic feeling, looking for a cause. I’m not sure I found it, but I will ramble here anyway. After all, it’s stormy outside and I’m aboard and alone without my distractingly handsome mate.

This is the beauty of Minnesota. Just when you get to know yourself in a certain space at a certain time, your environment flips the switch. You are reminded that time is not a statue. It is not something concrete that you can go back to and touch or relive. Time is fleeting.

Spring reminds me of tilled fields, running in the rain, and of more recent nostalgia, coming home. Three years ago in April, Michael and I came home from nearly six months of travel. We loved every moment of these months, but we missed something tangible. We missed the seasons. We completely skipped winter and all that comes with winter – reading extra books, snowstorms, bundling up to go outside, movie nights in, the holidays with our families, etc. We had Christmas at a McDonalds for gosh sakes. They had free Wifi. You take what you can get. We didn’t notice until we returned how valuable these seasons are. They balance your innards (like your soul and stuff).

The change of season is a faithful reminder that you better get to living now because now is all you’ve got.

So back to the spring feels. It seems crazy to say that this is our third year of living aboard. It seems like just yesterday we were spending full days grinding down our boat, repainting it, and living in our van all the while. Time flies.

Thanks spring for the in your face reminder that you are here; for startling us with thunder and showering us with oversized hail this week; you play dirty. I write this as tornado watches and warnings beep all over the state. Spring is beauty and pain at its finest.

We bought the boat prior to our travels, not knowing how the world would change us and if we would even like each other when we got back. Spoiler alert: We came back not in dislike or like, we came back nearly obsessed with one another and filled with a love for genuine souls and joy in any strange experience that would come our way. You could say that this marina fit into our lives perfectly for the strange and genuine souls we would meet in those weeks are like our family now. Roger knows our schedules down to the hour and is a constant on the dock, looking out for us all and always there when we need a hand. You know summer is well underway when John has his flags out and his music is heard from down the dock. Diane is the one you go to for a good conversation; she listens intently and has the best insight. Wally starts the bonfires and tries to share his blue mixed drink with you. I won’t dare share his secret cocktail recipe but I’ll let you know it contains three different kinds of alcohol and nothing else; I’ve had it once and never again. I won’t go on and on about these people although I could. I hope that someday, these people I love will let me share them through story but that’s for another time. Anyway, this is all a part of the nostalgia thing.

I have a feeling that spring will always remind me of those May days three years ago. From sun up to sun down, we were working on that boat. Michael had a grinder for a hand while I, who finds painting to be very therapeutic, had had enough therapy to cure the craziest of minds and then make them crazy all over again. We were in a constant state of sweat and van life certainly didn’t help our hygiene. Our future neighbors would stop by to meet us and bear wisdom or ideas for this or that adding to our to-do list and allowing us to quickly fall in love with this quirky place.

Wow spring, you are actually raining so hard right now that I can no longer hear myself think. What are you trying to say, that you’re not all flowers and Mother’s Day!? I get it. Okay guys, Mother Earth wants me to tell you that spring brings the feels, but they’re not always good. You might meet a spring that makes you miss someone or like I’ve noticed, a spring that reminds you that time is not a statue; you can’t go back to it. Spring might make you feel old or like you’ve left something behind.

Spring brings storms. They’re scary sometimes… especially now when Michael is at the cabin and here I am stuffing towels into crevices to remedy unexpected leaks and refreshing my weather app to see if there’s a tornado in my midst. Hmm… I hope our bilge pump works…

Okay, she chilled out now. That was intense. I’ll check the boat for hail damage later. It’s the funniest thing to watch the river’s response to hail; jumping all around, a perfect representation of my nerves at the time. It’s crazy how your mood syncs with the weather. Spring, you are a powerhouse…you make us feel oh so alive. You shower us (quite literally today) with all sorts of sensations. You remind us that time is fleeting while surprising us with new life. You startle us with thunder and then bring a rainbow. Spring, you’re a bit bipolar but I like you. Ya know, after writing this, I just might call you my favorite season… don’t tell summer I said that.