The fog pressed against the windows this morning, and I manufactured several reasons not to walk. They voices in my head ran the gambit from safety conscious, “The road’s so narrow and the fog’s so thick, I could get hit by a car,” to wimpy, “My hair will get wet,” to whiny, “It looks cold, and I’m tired of shivering.”
When the pathetic clamor grew unbearable, I stepped outside to test the waters and was surprised to find the temperature was warm, the wind was non-existent, and my carefully manufactured excuses were all wet. Before I reached the end of the driveway, I was glad to be outside. Dew clung to the violets, beading the petals with pearls. The violets’ perfume mingled with the faint, cinnamony smell rising from the drift of dead leaves along the fence. The birds chirped and sang, half-hidden by the mist. They flew from branch to branch, undeterred by the fog and the damp.
A few steps down our gravel road and the wet, wormy smell that confirms the arrival of spring filled the air. In the ditch, a robin tugged at an earthworm, then started and flew away when I walked by. Half in and half out of the ground, the bird’s breakfast burrowed back into the soft, wet dirt. On the other side of the road, two male cardinals guarded their turf, trading bird-chirp insults and puffing out their little chests. Slugs inched along the gravel, their grim determination morphing into a death wish whenever a car passed by.
As I walked, the fog slowly lifted. In one short hour, daylight extinguished the strange beauty created by the mist. When I went into the house, the voices in my head were quiet until one exultant cheer burst forth. “Ah, spring!” it shouted as the last remnants of the flog clung to my hair and dripped onto my nose, smelling faintly of worms and violets and cinnamon. “Ah, spring!”
