For me, my spring-thing starts with a great state of mind. After all, it kind of rushes past us in a place like Wisconsin. Here, it snows in the morning and is 75 degrees by late noon, so no one can really be sure when springtime is anymore.

So, if someone asks when does spring start, just tell them around 2 o’clock one day near the end of April till around 8 p.m. that same day. Afterward, it will be days of heat waves, cold rains and flash floods.

Even so, there is still that changing of seasonal activities. To mentally prepare, I have started to do long meditations to 520 Hz ambient sound tracks to clear the clutter from my thoughts. Together, with instructional videos and fasting, I have emerged myself into trying my whole body at yoga to sweep away some extra pounds.

I plan to eat more salads, create fresh juices with my juicer and make more smoothies. Being single, I am well aware that it’s usually a season for loners to possibly score a sweetheart, so I want to look and feel like a winner, just in case!

Going through my personal belongings and parting with a few, I am a better person for giving. Giving makes room for getting.

Springtime brings confidence with a chance at everything all new. It is when shorts and skirts come out and skin shows up. Flip-flops make their debut with pedicures and tennis shoes go under beds most days.

Having spent a great deal of time ridding myself of negative thoughts, habits, people and places, I know to be more careful of what to attract next. My point is, since spring has been reduced to the state of mind for us, we have to focus on enjoying what is here and what’s to come, what we love and what we want. Do we want a better world? A normal set of seasons? Do we want to turn around threats of climate change? What responsibilities to the Earth can we uphold?

We must imagine spring showers and April flowers and how to get there. I can see myself roaming down a rolling, litter-free landscape until I am forced into a sweet skip, admiring the flowers peppering the hillside. I have on my Laura Ingalls Wilder dress down to my feet accompanied by an apron, Holly Hobbie style. My pigtail braids bounce on my back as I hop-along-trot, smelling all of the fragrances that Mother Nature has to offer.

Grey skies in the far distance seem to be headed my way. I make it my business to go back to the house with Ma and Pa. Passing our own garden, a few drops of rain present themselves on the skin of my face and wrists.

Soon a gentle rain is producing calming warmth over everything green and growing.

As I sit in reality, in the hot sun on burning concrete steps writing this, the mere thought of a season somehow escaping us, I wonder if it will ever return? I’m thinking of ways to keep the memory of it alive.

I’m thinking of ways to bring it back to life. In the month of April is Earth Day, but if spring is threatening to be but a memory, shouldn’t Earth Day be every day? As I ponder this I see an empty chip bag roll by a budding lone tulip.

Suddenly, I have a date with a garbage can. Wink.