Living Between the Seasons.

Although it's been a crazy year since my wife and I picked up and moved 1600 miles away from the comfortable confines of our 95 year-old craftsman bungalow in our hometown of Wichita, I can undoubtedly say that some stability and certainty wouldn't go unwanted. I imagine most people can get on board with this; 2020 had been a year leaving us pining for a sense of normalcy in a lot of areas of our lives. For me, one sense of normalcy that never had to change, fortunately, was my daily walk.

I love to be outside, so when the seemingly interminable restrictions began--and continued to drag on and on--the only reason I really had to get out was not for social interaction, but for fresh air, exercise, landscapes, and capturing a sense of awe from the natural world. Naturally, this being the most preferable reason for me to get outside anyway, I wholeheartedly took advantage of it.

Being new to Roseville, California, any time I went for a walk became a wondrous adventure--exploring the wetland preserve immediately behind our place, or simply walking down Woodcreek Oaks Boulevard to loop around the scenic and open Blue Oaks Park--with an opportunity to absorb the new spring growth of bermuda grass that had earned an early tint of emerald with the recently warm temperatures.

Today, as I walked along, I looked up on the horizon and spotted a tall, sturdy black spruce; its forest green fur broke across the blue background of the big sky with its wisps of silver clouds. But another contrast that I noticed was immediately at ground level. A smaller, bulbous pear tree had budded its white plumes of tiny flowers, and when the breeze picked up, the fragile buds broke away from its branches and fluttered and floated along to wherever the wind would take them. I shivered as I watched. The sun had been popping in and out between the puffs of silver vapor in the sky, and now, the warmth and brightness of the day had been replaced with that whisper of north wind and dimness of semi-translucent clouds, turning what was a few moments of spring back into a quick taste of winter. Between, I said to myself.

I stood motionless and sighed. This was Roseville in the spring time. It was a new experience for my wife and I. We moved here in order for her to pursue an opportunity in Christian ministry. For me? I had found my way, taking an opportunity to teach at a small, private university here in town, not really knowing if I would be offered more adjunct opportunities in the future. It was still uncertain. I sighed again and continued to walk.

Ahead I noticed a twisted web work of thorns--a concoction of spindly bramble bushes crowding the the gravel path. In the late-winter days, the shrub was only bearing thorns along its stems and not any kind of fruit. Its leaves were green, but due to the lack of early spring warmth and sunlight, large, bare and brown patches of branches broke through, still in its slow, invisible process of waking up from its winter dormancy. My career felt that way here. No full-time opportunities had arisen from my diligence at the job I worked part time at. What was I going to do when the semester ended? Would I ever get back into the classroom full time again? Would I ever get out of this phase where I felt stuck between the full-time career I gave up and the full-time career I didn't have yet? Between...I heard myself say again. I paused again looking along underfoot, realizing my feet had been crunching a million oak leaves that had fallen and found refuge for the winter on the barren expanse of grass. I looked at the grass, green blades breaking up the maze of dormant yellow. It was in between its season. Again, I glanced up at the trees, the white tails flittering and falling from the pear trees, waiting for warmth that would lead the tree from its wintery, white coat to its full summer green. It's in between, resounded between my ears again.

I studied the sturdy black oaks standing ahead of me, the tips of their bare branches beckoning at the sun breaking through the gray clouds, ready for its warmth, waiting between each passing cloud to feel the warmth from the rays of sunlight. But there was more than just the warmth going on. The day, I had realized, was winter and spring at once...it was warm, it was windy, it was cold, cloudy, sunny. Trees were barren for the winter, others were bulbous and blooming; new leaves were budding while winter leaves were piled along the ground. The sun was warm and the wind was cold. It was that time of the year between two seasons. But in the midst of the transition between one season and the other, the list of amazing changes that were taking place was incredible...almost unbelievable! It was the time of year when, in reality, the most things were happening, the most changes were taking place. I walked steadily now, across the rolling patches of green and yellow grass, with a cold wind at my back and the warm sun breaking through overhead. The bare branches stood, arms raised, waiting for the growth that would come again soon. When I reached the door of my apartment, I wasn't worried. "It's all in between," I said.