Neither here nor there -
We were sitting around the table drinking tea when a friend told the story of standing at the cash register while her groceries were checked through.
"What a beautiful day" she exulted.
The young woman behind the counter let free a weak smile and replied, "Yes, but we will have to pay for it".
Initially a little sorry that the young woman's glass-half-empty outlook had not been brightened by the sunlight pouring in through the window, my friend heard herself saying "No. We won't have to pay for it. Today's sun is repaying us for last winter".
The cashier's smile gained a little strength as she took in this idea, my friend recounted.
"I could tell she was mentally re-checking her glass and confirming that it might, in fact, be half full. It made me feel happy, because as her glass filled, so did her smile".
My friend left the shop feeling even happier than when she'd come in.
The other friend at our table, holding her mug of tea in both hands, burst out "This place is so beautiful, that the first sunny day in spring makes you forget winter altogether". As if to prove it, the three of us launched into a half hour discussion of what plants were already poking through the ground, what others would soon be sprouting throughout the woods.
It is true. Spring's first sun is a like a giant soft eraser wiping out the memory of rain, snow, sleet, drizzle, fog, wind, and cold. The sun removes the pain of winter and miraculously, even the memory of the pain.
The analgesic amnesia of spring.
But it's not just the weather. Think of all the other negative thoughts that, along with the memory of frozen fingers, toes and noses, fade away with each extra minute of light between dawn and dusk. At the same time the positive memories of warmer times flood in to fill the gap left by the now-forgotten frostbite.
The sight of the first pair of black-back gulls establishing their nursery on the rocks off the point in preparation for hatching chases away memories of the government's attempts to close X-Ray clinics in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.
Well, okay, almost chases them away. Not entirely.
Because just as the in-migrating black backs touch down in Salvage Harbour the specialists in out-migration lift off from St. Anthony airport. They are aboard the one and only air ambulance outside St. John's. They are taking away the aircraft and delivering it to its new home in Happy Valley Goose Bay. Looking down from the window of the plane the Chief Pilot watches the Northern Peninsula getting smaller and smaller down below.
"That will teach them which way to vote" whispers our Friendly Giant, bad cop premier to his sometime good cop Health Minister, Jerome the Giraffe.
The green shoots of crocuses pushing up through the melting snow bring joy. In French they are known as "perce-neige", piercers of the snow. They are the very first flowers to turn up each spring. The delight of their arrival is almost enough to drive away thoughts of the same old, same old, re-runs from years gone by. Yes, it's the annual dispute over the price of crab that fishers and processors were supposed to agree on but once again cannot.
I thought there was a panel in place, agreed upon by both sides to set the price. I thought that price was $1.35. I thought it was supposed to be binding, but I could be wrong because I was just distracted by another sure sign that spring is here. The first speed boat of the year is passing by the window, on its way to set herring nets in Bishop's Harbour.
The goings-on at Eastern Health are trying desperately to cling to the prominent place in my consciousness they have held for years now. They are losing ground though. They are no match for the feeling of warmth on my face as I sit down on the steps of the front bridge with a cup of tea in hand, a view of the open sea to my right and the harbour to my left.
It took a few days beyond the 21st of March, but it's working. The analgesic amnesia is taking effect. We are being repaid for the preceding months of short, hard, gray days.
Happy Spring.
pickersgill@mac.com
.jpg)
.jpg)
