Maybe I’m just getting old, but this has been the longest winter I can recall.

Of course, its recentness may have colored my perception, but something’s been different about this one. Something ominous and intrusive, yet subtle and difficult to capture.

This year I’ve longed for spring.

I’ve longed to sleep with the windows wide open, to feel the gentle chill on my face and quietly revel in the night sounds. I’ve longed to blink awake to daylight and the chirps of hatchlings, to the scent of wild onions in my backyard, and to catch those gentle whiffs of something blooming nearby.

I’ve longed for leafed-out dogwood and forsythia and ornamental pear. For flowery things in yellow and gold and blue and red around front porches and in window boxes, collecting cascades of brightly painted nectar eaters that flutter and buzz.

I’ve longed for the gray-brown mountains to leap green, for hillside houses to disappear, betrayed only when their night-lights wink and dance through the leafy branches. I’ve longed to see the peaks unfrosted, unclouded, and unimposing.

And I’ve longed for lowland broadleafs to muffle the road noise and obscure the movement of travel and commerce.

I’ve longed for short sleeves and seersucker, for jackets worn to work and carried home. I’ve longed to walk barefoot in the moonlight, to wiggle my toes in the dewy grass and lie pajama-clad in my front yard to stare up at the stars.

I’ve longed to gather with my neighbors at the fire pit. To sit on iron furniture or boulders or ground, sharing vignettes of personal life over suppers from our various kitchens. To watch fireflies and smoke-carried sparks in their fading rise against the black night, and to stare near-mesmerized into the ancient, cracking face of wood fire.

And despite my inescapable lack of skill, I’ve even longed to play my guitar, which has lain untouched, decisively ignored the past few months. Somehow it just sounds better outdoors.

You see, as much as I love my little cottage, it’s been an encasement this year, as much restrictor as protector. I’ve stayed cozy in the attempted cheeriness of my blue-flame heater, its warmth amply spread by ceiling fan, but the oddly indescribable, near-oily smell of burning propane has kept me a bit annoyed, off-center.

And our seemingly constant overcast has somehow penetrated my window blinds, or rushed through the door with chilly wind, or perhaps ridden in from the outside on my consciousness, imposing a mild but inescapable gloominess on my inner sanctum.

Admittedly, no one with even cursory knowledge of my housekeeping prowess would ever suggest me as a model of anything domestic, but this winter I’ve set new standards in dust, unswept floors, unvacuumed rugs and shower grunge.

And for months now, I’ve had a friend’s laundry-room bifold door leaning against my kitchen wall, awaiting simple repair. Even the guilt of unkept promise has not goaded me to action. Somehow, I’ve just not been able to get to it.

But as the cold weather fades, I realize I’ve mostly been missing my writing spot: Porch corner by the rail, out away from the roof. Rocking chair. Near-obsolete laptop computer knee-perched above my bare feet. Mountains in front, roaring creek beside, maples protecting from above. Squirrels and birds to entertain, and neighborhood cats to drop by for lapsitting and keyboard-walking sessions, contributing random, nonsensical characters to my copy while shedding on my shirt.

Over recent months, I’ve tried to write out there. But even with longjohns, toboggan and an army surplus field jacket, the muddle in my mind just wouldn’t gee and haw with something to say. Besides, my fingers always got cold, and I can’t type in gloves.

I’ve tried to write on my sofa, my laptop on a makeshift coffee table (actually, a storage box full of ‘50s- and ‘60s-era vinyl LPs). But experiences and imagination projected onto paneled walls have produced only an Alzheimer-like vision, a memory of having recalled more clearly, a shadow image of once-sharper focus and spontaneous laughter.

But this day. Oh, my.

It’s been a sleep-late Saturday of warm air and blossoms and bird sounds. I’ve been purposefully lazy, taking every opportunity to do nothing but savor the change.

And this evening .... Though not barefoot, I’ve got porch-corner, rocking chair wicker under my butt, a tall glass of cranberry-laced tap water on the rail, and my laptop in place.

The world feels right again.

A neighbor’s ornamental pears are budding. And beside the maple in the center of our little court, brilliant yellow daffodil trumpets are leading a multi-floraed charge from brown to green.

Road sounds through Maggie are still intrusive, but the creek’s my right-side buddy again, decluttering my senses with its white noise, soft-roar symphony. And a while ago a tufted something-or-other flitted over to scrape-clean his tiny beak on a branch above my head.

The white cat from next door has several times padded across my keyboard, face-butting me with the top of her head, kneading her claws into my jeaned leg, and treating me to well-intentioned, but less-than-appealing views of the underside of her tail, up close and personal.

Across the valley, my favorite hillside still presents an eyeful of houses, gray-black streets and dead-leafed forest floor, yet offering occasional hints of camouflage and concealment to come. It’s a preseason teaser, lifting me from the doldrums of dust and propane.

As I’ve tried to take it all in, to let it bathe and soothe my winter sores, the sun has faded and the mountain-framed sky has adopted its not-yet-starry nothingness. House lights are appearing here and there, and the gently sloshing air is play-chilling my forearms and the backs of my hands. My fingers on the keyboard move like little ghosts in the soft glow of my laptop.

I’ll go inside in a minute, but for now I’ll just sit.

Oh, how I’ve longed for spring ... especially this year.

(Lewis Garnett lives and writes in Maggie Valley. He can be reached at lgar@brinet.com)

 

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