Springtime, which many tell me is supposed to be a happy, vibrant time is, for
me, all too often a time of depression. The last, deepest, and worst part of
Winter finds me withdrawn into my shell, my self-examination mechanism dialed
down to zero, with all aspirations and dreams larger than the workaday world
walled away into a deep part of my psyche that I refuse to acknowledge.

But the coming of Spring makes that an impossible position to maintain. I have
no choice but to let the light in where it burrows like a worm into that little
seed from which my motivations (ahem) spring.

It’s a mini-crisis like the birthday crisis I endure every October, when I
become overwhelmed with regret at roads taken and not taken, opportunities
missed, goals gone unachieved. But unlike the birthday crisis, which hits just
as the darkness of winter is coming in, causing a systemic shutdown, the Spring
crisis retains a hint of that fabled sense of renewal, and instead of deciding
that it’s all in vain I crawl forth convinced that this time I am going to kick
myself in the ass and really do things right. My abandoned plans to lose some
weight, gain a foreign language, become recognized as a Great American Poet
under the age of 20, 25, 30, 35, are all revived. I become convinced that I can
excel at my technical job while retaining and feeding the essential
intellectual core that needed to be any good as a poet, thinker, critic, and
essayist.

Whatever. I am once again convinced– as always– that next year won’t find me
in the same place, writing these same thoughts down once more.