Spring renews, transforms, and uplifts us. No matter where we are, or how it appears, we notice the shift into this unpredictable season. But, how closely do we really notice it? What landmarks can we return to, year after year, that define spring’s arrival? How do these differ from place to place? This essay pays close attention to spring, in all of its minute manifestations, across the Rocky Mountains and Upper Midwest.
“One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.” – Henry David Thoreau in Walden
1. Cardwell, Montana (March – April)
The dandelion is not the first flower of spring. At least, not here, in the Tobacco Root Mountains, outside of Cardwell, Montana, where, on March 25th, like a saviour being born, Sagebrush Buttercup opened its glistening petals and became a holy sun.
I had been dreaming of flowers since January and studying botany, with only pictures to observe, since February. And now, here were petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils. Here were insects, itching to put on their pollination performances. Here was spring, whole and entire, right where it ought to be.
I prayed over the Sagebrush Buttercup’s one-centimetre-tall body, its five symmetrical, glossy petals and many stamens. I gave thanks for its brave blossoming, bursting forth from the long edge of winter. I looked earnestly for other flowers and other plants, but found none.
On March 30th, just five days later, one foot of snow fell, hugging what seemed like the whole Earth in a thick, glittering trench coat. And still, the buttercup bloomed on, neither oblivious nor indifferent. Perhaps just accustomed to these wet and heavy late-March snowstorms characteristic of the region. When the snow melted, the buttercups had multiplied twentyfold.
It seems that here, at 5,208 feet above sea level, just barely still in the foothills, spring occurs not on any given day, but in a cascade. Each sense, each change, each fluctuation is a droplet leading to the waterfall, building a boat towards the oncoming summer.
I knew it was spring on March 11th because I could smell it: there was not a visual sign to be found anywhere in the snowdrifts and patchy brown grasses, but I could smell the moisture coming, the heat preparing to melt winter into the ground, the hint of spring on winter’s breath. I heard it in the unimpeded flow of the river, which melted fully on March 18th. Now, I can see it, in Sagebrush Buttercup, the first flower of this glorious spring. The flower’s brightness is intoxicating. It makes me shiver with glee and yearn only to find more like it.
I loved the winter here, high in the mountains and free from worry about snowfall impeding my morning commute. I loved the days below -20F, the heavy snowfalls, and the piercing quiet. But, there comes a time in every winter-lover’s heart where there is an undeniable longing for spring. Perhaps because winter would not be winter without it. Winter is sweetened by the knowledge that it will someday become spring: the snow will melt, the cold will lift, and the darkness will become light. These transformations empower winter, making it worth relishing for as long as it blesses your region.
I am afraid to imagine how much of March, how much of those first trickles of spring, I might have missed had I not been looking. How easily my brain could have blurred the yellow aberration had I lacked the powers of recognition. How long the last winter days might have been, had spring not appeared when it did, tangible and floral, before me. How soon could I have spent April, cold and forlorn, dreaming of a day that had already passed. How easily I could’ve also missed springbeauty, pasqueflower, yellowbells, and cushion phlox.
These transformations occur quietly, always under our feet, regardless of our observations. The Sagebrush Buttercup cared little whether or not I stopped to admire it. This enhances its power even more. To look upon a blooming flower and know its blossoming has nothing to do with you is a beautiful and radical thing for the often self-aggrandising human. Every flower is an invitation for connection with something we otherwise do not trouble ourselves with because we are too busy doing “business,” whatever that may be.
It makes me wonder how many other flowers I have missed for them being too small, too early, or too hidden by my other preoccupations and lack of knowledge. What other phenomena have escaped my glancing gaze, my forward-marching feet? Who else has blossomed, under the partial cover of winter, without my noticing?
I intend, from now until forever, to practice being worthy of such beauty. To practice paying attention. To practice noticing, closely, so I may never miss the first flower of every season in every place I ever live.
2. Kalamazoo, Michigan (April-May)
Chickweed! After searching carefully for chickweed all over southwest Montana, here it grows, where I was not expecting nor looking. This proves how knowledge facilitates recognition. If I had not known chickweed’s qualities: its sprawling habit, its five, white, bifurcated petals, and its simple green leaves, I likely would never have seen it. I visit my parents’ home in Kalamazoo, Michigan, almost every spring for morel mushroom hunting season, and I never once noticed the chickweed growing along the house and throughout the garden.
Chickweed is a highly nutritious and palatable wild edible that pairs well with dandelion greens in a salad. It is a rejuvenating spring detoxifier after a long winter without access to fresh vegetables. And, it grows abundantly in the spring and fall in most home gardens. Often considered a nuisance, this delicious wild edible should be treasured as it provides greens long before garden lettuces and requires no effort to nurture.
There are several plants here that I never saw in the arid, mountainous Montana, including dandelions, red dead nettle, hairy bittercress, germander speedwell, violets, trout lilies, and trilliums. Some of these plants will likely appear in Montana later in spring, others prefer a wetter climate and are unlikely to grow there.
I just learned to identify many of these plants this year, despite living in Michigan my whole life. Some I recognised, like red dead nettle, but could not name. Others, like the speedwell and bittercress, I had never seen before, despite them growing around the garden every year. It’s a funny thing our brains do, this censorship: discarding information deemed irrelevant without being conscious of it. And relevance, it seems, is determined by what we think is important and what we train our brains to pay attention to, regardless of what we want to notice.
I only used to “check in” with the land and seasons just a few times per month to notice the major shifts: the leaves changing, the snow falling, the grass growing, and the berries blushing. The closest attention I ever paid to spring was for morel mushroom hunting. My dad and I used to track things like insect nests, soil temperature, and weather forecasts during the three-week mushroom hunting window to see when conditions would be best for hunting. Otherwise, the vegetation in spring was an amorphous mass of greenery, lacking detail and distinction.
Now, however, after living in a remote place all winter with little else to do, I know how to go out and study the land every day, sometimes several times per day, and note the changes. I can see a flower bud in the morning and return to it in the afternoon to find its petals open in the sun. I observe and categorise the new plants that appear every day in my study areas. I track the progression from one blossom to fifty over time. This Earth study is so rewarding, and nurtures and enriches me everywhere I go, because there are always new things to notice, new subjects to focus this attention on. But first, I had to practice. The untrained eye sees little change in the landscape from spring in Montana to spring in Kalamazoo, aside from the obvious transformations in topography. But, to the careful observer, a diversity of beautiful, and often edible, plant life appears under close observation.
3. Twin Lakes, Colorado (May-June)
I retreated into my tent and narrowly escaped a storm. The wind is whipping, snow is
falling, and my shelter is nearly caving in on itself. It is mid-May and cold as a winter afternoon in Montana. I’m sitting at 9,000 feet on a reservoir under the shadow of the tallest peak in Colorado. It is painstakingly beautiful. There are both rugged and soft peaks. The lake is shimmering. I caught a gorgeous 15”, plump rainbow trout and ate it for dinner. I enjoyed watching the storm come in. It arrived as the weather used to in Montana, with the peaks disappearing under thick clouds and the precipitation slowly moving closer and closer.
Spring here feels more like winter. The peaks are thickly draped in snow, the aspens haven’t turned green yet, and the rabbitbrush is mostly bushes of sticks. But I see evidence of the coming shift, even today. On a walkabout I spotted desert currant with sprouting leaves, some young mustards, and growing grasses. I imagine spring here, like in Montana, arrives in fits and starts. Spring never claimed to be a season of certainty, and perhaps that is all the better. Determining that it is spring, by seeing it, hearing it, tasting it, and feeling it on your skin, is up to you. The sooner you look for it, the sooner it arrives.
And how necessary it is to notice this arrival, to pay mind to something so beyond the world of economy, responsibility, and respectability. Recognising the sprouting of a familiar plant does more to abate seasonal depression than any sun lamp I have ever tried. There are cures for the loneliness of being alive, and spring is one of them. Do not let its details pass by without moving you. When you fix your attention on the seasons, you become enriched by all the beauty, comfort, and sustenance the Earth has to offer.
