Celebrating Spring, Celebrating the Sun

The notion that spring starts on a specific day is absurd, both meteorologically and emotionally. Spring arrives by fits and starts, never the same schedule from year to year. Part of its charm lies in the mystery, anticipation, and blossoming.

We had a fine “false spring” in February. Remember? Everyone knew it wasn’t the “real thing.”

On the first day of March, Hilary and I attended a Martinitza—the traditional Bulgarian spring celebration—at the Granada Theater in Uptown, which some might remember as the Suburban World. The last movie I can recall seeing there is Richard Pryor Live. It was released in 1979. The movie was funny, as I recall. I had forgotten all about the theater’s twisted columns, the faux-Roman statues in the alcoves, and the twinkling stars on the ceiling.

We had purchased standing-room tickets but were pleased to find and join some friends who had booked a table on the upper tier of the seating section behind the bar, where we could chat but also see the stage, hear the music, and watch the dancing. Other friends dropped by now and again in the course of the evening.

The music was great, the dance floor was packed, and the atmosphere was festive—everything that the Bulgarian School of Minnesota, who sponsored the event, might have hoped for. (You can read more about the traditions involved here.)

I didn’t think much about spring per se that night, but as we walked back to the car I was reminded of the days when we lived nearby and still thought Uptown was cool. There are other forms of cool these days, I’m sure. Styles come and go, but the sound of the clarinet and the accordion in sweet harmony is eternal.  

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There are usually a string of days in early March during which it’s imperative to get out into the sun. We were treated this year to a Wednesday blizzard—seven inches at least—and the snow brightened things up. The next morning the snow was soft. It wasn’t the best for skiing, but better than gliding across grass and sticks.

On Friday morning we headed downtown to look at flowers—the flowers on exhibit in the Cargill Gallery at the Institute of Arts. It’s a small show consisting of ten or twelve exquisite wood-block prints by Hokusai set against a single large and idiosyncratic oil painting of chrysanthemums by Claude Monet.

Our next stop was Westminster Church downtown, where we listened to the Artaria String Quartet perform two of Mozart’s celebrated “Haydn” quartets. Not bad. But the true glory of the day was the stroll in bright sun from our parking spot on Yale Place through Loring Park for a late lunch at Gai Noa, a Laotian restaurant overlooking the park. The food was good. The experience of being out and about on foot in the heart of the city was better.  

But as the temperature rose, the urge to spent an entire day outdoors increased, and a few days later we headed south down the river to Lake Pepin in hope of spotting some birds. Before we’d even gotten into the car Hilary noticed a hawk in the front yard devouring a songbird. She took a few photos and we later identified it as a merlin.

An hour later we were in Bay City on the shores of Lake Pepin, looking out across the bay, which that tends to thaw early due to the meltwater arriving down Isabelle Creek. Countless ducks were milling around both out in the lake and at the mouth of the slough a quarter-mile down the shore: widgeons, buffleheads, ring-necked ducks, gadwalls, and mergansers of several varieties, with bald eagles soaring overhead and Canada geese heading north in large flocks high above.

The drive south along the east shore of the lake was glorious. The cheese shop in Nelson was packed with people lining up to buy sandwiches and ice cream cones. Liberation and hints of the summer fun to come were in the air. We bought some sandwiches and ate a late lunch in the car overlooking the slough on the causeway connecting Nelson with Wabasha, and we punctuated the return trip up the Minnesota side of the river with a stop at Frontenac State Park.