Looking for Robins

It is that time of year again. Robins should return to our yard this week.

My mother's birthday was February 23rd, and every year two things happened that week: the hyacinths appeared in the grocery flower shop, and the robins returned to our yard.

So for the past week I have daily looked out the kitchen window to our field, where I hoped to be greeted by our personal harbingers of coming spring. So far, none have been spotted. I asked my Facebook friends to alert me to their first sightings, knowing that if they were seen nearby they would be here soon.

We do look for those positive changes in our lives. Spring brings with it new clothes (or at least ones we haven't worn since the nippy Autumn weather arrived) and flowers and more daylight and opportunities to enjoy outdoor activities. For some it means working in the garden or cycling or getting the motorcycle out of the garage.

But not everything about Spring is welcomed by everyone. Those beautiful flowers and trees come with pollen that make every breath miserable for some. The bees are a menace to those whose life is threatened if stung (and they are a nuisance to thise of us who are just scared of them). Some of us are not garden elves and look at all that outdoor care as dreaded chores.

Change however is part of life - some we welcome more than others.

I cannot comprehend how there are people who look forward to winter and cold weather and snow. But look at all the people who enjoy sledding, skating and skiing. So many who embrace the temperatures I dread. Summer in the mid-Atlantic can be humid and hot and miserable, and yet there are those who love it and rarely turn on the AC because they relish the summer weather for just those aspects.

Of course the normal course of the seasons isn't always like clockwork - we get the early snow, or the weather stays "unseasonably" warm or cool. We plan based on the "normal" and are surprised. (The year I got married, we had an unexpected heat wave in mid-May and it was 97 degrees at 7:30pm. We thought we had planned for not-too-hot-not-too-cold - hah!)

And so it is with the other seasons of our lives. Childhood gives way to adolescence which dumps us into adulthood. Being single ends when we get married and then become parents. Being the parent of a small child is different than parenting the teen who is on his/her own way toward adulthood. Being a grandparent is different than being a parent. Working full-time is the norm for many years and then we retire - another season.

We are sometimes prepared for these changes. We have months to plan a wedding, and months to prepare for the birth of a child. Often we plan our retirement for years. And other times we do not have time to prepare: the child is stillborn, the spouse dies of cancer, we are laid off or injured...

It is good to live prepared. It is good to live so that we are always ready for that new season. And it is good to be accepting when the seasons change unexpectedly. For as the saying goes, the only constant in life is change.

In the meantime, have you seen the robins?