Anne and I came back to Brooklyn this past Sunday to find spring in full bloom. The recent cold weather and lack of pedestrians seem to have created the perfect environment for plant life, and there are beautiful flower beds all over Brooklyn Heights. I’m hesitant to use extremes, since during corona everything is either a first, last, best or worst (last restaurant meal, worst day in the market), but this feels like the first time I have seen spring in New York.
I recognize this is for a couple of reasons. Everybody in the country right now seems to be feeling the exuberance of spring. States are showing signs of opening back up, our weeks of quarantine seem to be having some impact and the weather is warming up. When Anne and I went for our first walk in Brooklyn Bridge Park, it was pretty clear that, quarantine or not, New Yorkers were feeling good. As my fellow Brooklynite Matt put it, “if it weren’t for the masks it would look like any other beautiful day in the city.”
Spring has always been my favorite time of year. Spring is my birthday. It’s Mother’s Day and Easter. It’s also been the last few weeks of the school year, the apex of the lacrosse season, and the return of freshly cut grass. More recently, it’s when I’ve taken some great trips, to Thailand, Norway and Colombia. Spring’s core is a concentrated, fleeting period of a few weeks in which so many of my purest memories have formed.
Spring to me is also a different way of living. I have never felt like spring requires me to try very hard. In school it was always when we had the most parties, or drove off campus during lunch; when our teachers would open the windows. It’s when I would be at my sloppiest, when I would jam tests and homework into my backpack and hope that I’d remember to dig them out sometime before they were due. It is hands down the period of time in which I’ve gotten the most drunk.
That is the context in which I’ve returned to Brooklyn. All of these memories of spring are converging on me at a time when I’m not supposed to be enjoying the outdoors. When I’m not even supposed to be in the city, assuming I have another option. Somewhere, I’m expecting to find signs of spring outside of the purples and pinks and oranges I’m seeing bloom all around me. I’m expecting early dismissals from work, and exposed skin on the grass. I feel like going on some great adventure.
Did you know that flowers have meaning? I didn’t, although it seems very obvious to me now. Dark purple “Queen of the Night” tulips represent rebirth, renewal and growth. Light pink tulips signify familial love and friendship. Bluebells stand for humility and compassion. Here’s the truth that some of you, including my cynical alter-ego, know: All flowers have positive meanings. But here’s another, equally important truth: That doesn’t matter. Anne and I are back in Brooklyn, the weather is beautiful, people are happy amidst so much fear, and I stumbled upon flowers that feel relevant to this particular spring that we’re living through. I’ll take it.
