Today is the first day of spring in the Northern hemisphere. In 2021, spring marked a sharp change in the weather in Brooklyn, New York. I recall that it was 30/40-something degrees on March 19 and over 60 on March 20. This year, the spring-like weather started a few days in advance of spring. In fact, today is slightly cooler than it had been the past few days.
My main project, The New Leaf Journal, prides itself on being attuned to the seasons. I noted this on one of my early articles, referring to our special Emu Café section:
Light flits through the windows such that, while indoors, the particular sensibilities of the days and seasons permeate the establishment. The traits of the seasons are most crisp in the refreshing mornings.
I have posted content to welcome spring in each of the past few years. My spring content focused on finding interesting springtime materials from around the web. Below, I will provide some excerpts from my two introduction to spring articles and some other noteworthy spring finds I presented at The New Leaf Journal. Gopher and gemini readers should note that all links are https.
Last year, I collected a number of springtime pieces for a general reader article. I began the long post with the definition of "spring" from Webster's 1913:
"The season of spring; springtide."
Springtide is, of course, a slightly unusual word meaning "springtime."
The Plum Tree Blossoms Always in the Spring
This year, I covered material relating to plum trees in Japanese art and poetry. The oddly worded titled for the article comes from a 9th century poem by Sugawara no Michizane:
"Forget not to blossom always when the springtime comes."
My personal favorite spring-centric article re-printed a 19th century poem by Syndey Grey titled "The Blind Girl and the Spring." It is told from the perspective of a young girl who had lost her eyesight, but found that this hardship brought with it many gifts that allowed her to appreciate the change of season in a unique way.
The last post I will cover here (note the list is not exhaustive) focused on a photo I took in 2019 of a brown leaf floating in a clear stream in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's rock garden. Although the photo looks autumnal at first glance, I took it in May. At the time I published the article, I did not think about the fact that a photo of a brown leaf floating in the water in the spring is a fitting photo for the transition from winter to spring. The only caveat is that it was closer to summer than winter when I took the photo.
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