Magic of Spring

I live for these mornings.

I left the coffee pot to brew while I crawled into bed. I’m listening to the the birds chirping out my window - they’re out celebrating after the rainfall last night.

The sounds of coffee brewing pairs nicely with Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, so I put that on too before returning to my blanket fortress. I want to learn to play that when my arm is feeling better and can play piano again.

But Spring also brings up a strange nostalgic anxiety. I first injured my arm in the Spring - at my birthday party while bouldering. And every Winter it acts up, but usually is done by Spring. But not this year yet.

It was Spring when my whole family crumbled apart; days before my birthday. A few years after that, also a mere days before my birthday I took an emergency vacation from my toxic job, and then received a note from a doctor declaring this "vacation" needed to last another month.

So many horrible memories in Spring, yet I adore the season. Something about the melting snow and promise of blossoms that tricks me into thinking that I'll once again get to have another restart. Another chance to renew my hope in myself; without the ghosts of the past telling me that I'm not capable of more.

I used to sing in Music Festivals. The first one I ever did was on the morning of my 12th birthday. And then I did one every year after that until I was 18. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but because that’s what you did if you took voice lessons with any of the teachers in my town.

But I hated doing music festivals. I hated the competitive aspect being shoved into this artwork that I adored. And then being forced to face it over and over again until I no longer loved singing.

Yet I still love Spring.

Looking back, nothing good ever happened in Spring. I can recall hundreds of terrible memories that happened around Springtime: everything form stressful school projects and exams, to the deaths of grandparents, to a global pandemic.

Yet I still trust Spring.

Maybe it’s because I am self-centred just enough to allow my birthday to be the one thing that changes my whole outlook on Spring. I anchor myself to My Special Day so I can maintain the sacredness of this season, despite my nervous system warning me that historically this is a Bad Time.

In a way, I was born in the season of music. But instead of enjoying it and relishing in the study and practice, it turned into a weapon of stress against me. And even though music festivals stopped when I left my small town for university - I went to university for music. I thought removing myself from one competitive music environment and entering another would take away this bitter taste in my mouth. Only in university, I wasn’t competing against my fellow musicians, I was competing against something so much worse: time. Navigating university in a highly specialized degree with undiagnosed ADHD, created a special kind of trauma that I’m still unpacking years later. The time of two bachelor degrees later, if we want to think of it that way.

Yet I still believe in Spring.

So whenever my arm stops acting up, I’ll start reclaiming my love of music with my favourite composer, Erik Satie, and learn one of his most famous pieces, the Gymnopédies. I analyzed it in university classes. But now I’m just going to play it. Whenever my injury will let me sit at the piano for more than five minutes. The injury I sustained… in Spring.

Yet I still respect Spring.

Rebirth, renewal, new starts and all that. I listen to the birds. I sip the coffee. I listen to the ambient, solitary piano of Satie. And I remind myself that the renewal of Spring is an annual event. So every year can be a renewal for me, not one big test I have to pass to prove that I’m good enough. And maybe instead of proving myself, I can let myself just be.

Thank you, Spring.