I don’t know if it’s just the people I choose to hang out with, but it seems like everyone I’ve bumped into lately is morphing into a zombie. Co-workers, roommates, people at church, all seem like they’re sleepwalking through spring, ready to drop off the radar for a few weeks at a moment’s notice. Whether it’s stress at work, registration for classes (I woke up at 4 this morning for that privilege) organizations’ elections, politics or finally facing the schoolwork we’ve been putting off for two months, the campus that I look at every day has succumbed to a kind of malaise I can’t remember from my previous springs in Aggieland.
In my case, I’ve got to deal with finding a summer job, finding ways to pay for repairs on the car I just bought, finishing term projects, trying to find time to go home and visit family for the first time in four months, and studying for various grad school tests. All this was weighing heavily on my mind until Good Friday. Right before dozing off to bed, it hit me: just like Sally Fields says in that commercial for Boniva, “I’ve got this one life to live.” And there’s no point in wasting it by worrying about thequotidian.
Wake up! It’s spring outside, the only season where the best of Texas humidity, rain chances and temperatures all converge, and there is finally enough time in the day to enjoy it all. Go jump on a slack line, buy a Frisbee, walk through a park.
I think it’s appropriate to mention Easter. I have the benefit of belonging to a church that celebrates Easter as a liturgical season, lasting several weeks each year. There are benefits in this elongated observance, just as there are in Lent and the recognition of Good Friday; we get time to consider the relevance to our lives of rebirth, freshness, forgiveness and the promise of a better tomorrow. Instead of the traditional homily last night, my chaplain asked college students questions about what Easter, the Resurrection and the promise of a new life meant to us.
The gist of our responses was that it’s all about mulligans. We get a second chance, a clean slate, a new year (2009 is still young), and it’s ours to do with as we choose.
As my religious studies professor pointed out the other day, there are many correlations between Easter and the meaning of spring rites celebrated by ancient pagans; the ecstasy engendered by breaking out from winter’s last grasps, by seeing changes all around us.
Spring is about all of the good things, about today, about choosing to enjoy life as it comes our way. You’re going to get through your test one way or another, get that internship, register for classes, figure out financial aid, make it through the next work day. While you’re working on all of that, wake the most of today.