In ‘Just Spring’ An Ode to Multi-Sport Season Story by Gregory Scruggs
“A
“The Waste Land, it is often claimed, is a poem about sterility of all kinds— bodily, spiritual, geographical—and how post-war Europe had become a kind of wasteland after the horror and destruction of the First World War,” writes literary critic Oliver Tearle. Thus does Eliot decry the transition from winter to spring, as he fears fecundity amidst such decayed surroundings.
pril is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot exactly one hundred years ago in the opening stanza of The Waste Land. The famous first line reads like an indictment of the fourth month as Eliot yearns to stave off vernal rebirth and remain in the stillness that precedes spring:
the Pacific Northwest’s many natural blessings are micro-climates across elevation bands that offer our region a better alternative moniker au printemps: multi-sport season. While Mother Nature does not always cooperate with our arbitrary division of the calendar, it seems that April is often the sweet spot when snowpack and sunshine align. On April 1, water managers take their annual measurement to gauge the fullest depth of the winter snowpack. As the month progresses, daily high temperatures can invite t-shirts, and daylight illuminates the sky past 8 pm. The end result is a mountains-to-sound smorgasbord, a month where just about every outdoor activity is potentially in play, depending on the day’s weather. Still craving powder turns? Freak April snowstorms in the high country are by no means guaranteed, but also not unheard of. My first time down the Slot Couloir on Mt. Snoqualmie was an April venture where the sheltered upper mountain chute held a foot of fresh snow. Last season, I turned around on a ski tour
April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. I can imagine that spring conjured a bleak landscape for Eliot, looking out across Harvard Yard in his undergraduate days. I, too, spent my collegiate years in New England, where spring has another name: mud season. As Eliot’s classmate and contemporary e. e. cummings described the season: “in Just- / spring when the world is mud- / luscious.”
Photo by Tim Gibson
While hardly as ponderous as the pretensions of high modernist poets, the northwestern adventurer knows that the forgetful snow looms nearby even as dull roots stir with spring rain. Among
19TH ANNUAL
M a rch 18 , 19 & 2 0 , 2 0 22 BLAINE
NW Blaine-Birch Bay Park & Recreation District 2
Barrow’s Goldeneye - Photo by Eric Ellingson 48
The heartbeat of Cascadia
B I R C H B AY
•
SEMIAHMOO
Observe a spectacular variety of birds along the Northwest coast of the Pacific Flyway!
Stay Where the Birds Are!
Semiahmoo.com
•
WA S H I N G T O N
For more information about Blaine lodging and activities, visit www.BlaineByTheSea.com Wings Over Water Contact Info: 360-220-7663 or wingsownw@gmail.com
www.WingsOverWaterBirdingFestival.com
>>> Go to
AdventuresNW.com
to read ANW
