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Ahhh.
There’s something about a 70-degree day in early spring – or, thanks to this year’s wacky, winterless-weather scenario, in early March – that awakens your inner call of the wild, egging you to break out of routine, abandon your workload and bolt outdoors, whether it be to bask in the lone deck chair that didn’t get stowed away last fall, to bunch up with patrons outside an ice cream shop’s window or to unwind while noticing, not just seeing, but deeply appreciating, nature in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
So go.
Get to your favorite backyard nook, stretch of city sidewalk, playground swing set, park bench or walking trail. Then breathe. Exhale stale air; inhale fresh starts.
Listen to the Canada geese overhead, seemingly cajoling their fellow fliers as they jockey for airspace in a tight-knit formation that follows the Susquehanna River northward with GPS-like precision. For you, is this the welcome sound that signals another winter outlasted? Is it a chorus of spring peepers? Or perhaps a turkey’s distant cluck?
Peer at the treetops, where reddish buds bode the maple leaves about to burst.
Examine the ground for a daffodil’s daring appearance to commence the new growing season or a crocus cracking through the soil. Experienced flora watchers get a similar thrill over the first shoot of skunk cabbage, usually spotted in sun-dappled spots of forests and wetlands like those ringing Frances Slocum Lake in Luzerne County’s Back Mountain area.
Make a beeline while the sun shines for Wilkes-Barre’s River Common, or maybe Ricketts Glen State Park near Red Rock. Or listen to the stream’s song at Nescopeck State Park. Or get in tune with bird calls at the Susquehanna Riverlands, near Berwick.
Before the impulse passes, migrate to the outdoor spot in Northeastern Pennsylvania where your soul dances.
Leave behind, if only for a little bit, those CNN-fed concerns about the future (chiefly, of late, the nation’s presidential race) as well as tax season, self-imposed deadlines and bureaucratic ones, work-a-day pressures and personal obligations. They will wait.
Ahhh, warmth. Enjoy the return of coat-free days to the region, the resulting surge of vitality and the knowledge that, once again, you have withstood a cold, dark stretch.
In a lifetime, there can be only so many springs. Why waste a single one?