Hello Spring! It's Great to Hear From You Again.

“The day God created spring was probably also the day God created hope.”--Bernard Williams, philosopher                

It is a sound I associate with pure joy. With rebirth.  With hope. A sound that evokes in me that most immediate and happy of responses. My heart leaps, my spirit soars, my soul calms when the notes of this springy tune tickle my ear. It is a sound all too easy to take for granted, but is, for many of us in the northern climes of the United States, the sound of spring.

Now you might name the sweet whistle of an American Robin as your spring sound. You wouldn’t be wrong. With its distinctive tweet, the red breasted robin’s short and quick song, that always ends on a high note, certainly lays claim to being a harbinger of the second season. Nor would you be off base to name the radio call of your first Red Sox baseball game of the year, your spring sound. Joe Castiglione’s voice, with his mellifluous and dependable delivery of play by play, for almost 40 springs now; it a spring symphony for many the fan. Maybe your sound is the click clack of your bicycle chain as it shifts gears, sounding a bit clunky, as it adjusts to being on the road again after six months of hibernation in a chilly garage.

I have a special love for spring sounds and for all sounds really, perhaps more so than any of my other God-given senses and the gifts these offer me. As a young boy, ear infections and benign tumors in the bone behind my right ear necessitated surgery; that produced scar tissue and that took away almost half of my hearing.  So, straining to hear in a noisy setting or positioning myself in a room or a crowd to hear better: it reminds me often of how grateful I am to just be able to hear. To listen. To be still and enjoy the sounds of life. The sounds of spring.

Oh, almost forgot…my cherished spring sound?

Peepers peeping: the sound of tiny tree frogs sending out mating calls at dusk from the wetlands and swamps found all over New England.  Officially the peeper is called the Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer), an amphibious creature that makes a big sound for such a diminutive animal: they are about the size of a paper clip. They gather by the hundreds in cool and wet woodlands, awakening from their winter slumbers to herald the return of spring. Their distinctive “trill” sounds like…well, like peepers. When all those peepers peep at once, they offer such a familiar and comforting sound, their peeps combined provide a spring soundtrack. This is my absolute favorite spring sound.

So, the other night, as I set off on my daily walk just as the sun was setting, for the first time in a long time, since last October, the peepers returned, and they called out to me. Maybe you heard them too. In that sacred moment, winter was permanently banished, and spring returned to its rightful natural throne. That sound makes me want to take in and then let out a deep breath, to breathe a sigh of relief, for the peepers are telling me and all of us, that we made it through our winter of discontent, and may even be getting to the other side of a very, very long and trying year.

Apologies for those spring sounds there is not enough space to write about here. Like lawn mowers chugging and leaf blowers whining and ice cream trucks dinging. Don’t forget the sounds of youth sports games, the cheer of parents and grandparents rising up into a blue sky, and the shrill sound of the ref’s whistle—that is spring, absolutely. What else am I missing? Oh, yes: the sound of a chilly spring breeze as it blows through the budding canopies of the trees—with a ssshhhhh and whoosh.

What sound marks spring for you?

In the spring, in all seasons, there are so many lovely sounds to appreciate, to just listen to, sounds that mark the passage of time and sounds that somehow ground us on this earth. The sounds of each of the seasons remind us of one final miracle: the turning of this world, the yearly chance at redemption we receive from God in the gift of spring and all the ways this season of new life speaks to us and calls out to us.

Spring seems to say, “You can always begin again. Just listen to the peepers.”

Thank you, God. Thank you, spring.