Spring can really hang you up the most

Ok so Spring can really hang you up the most!!

Once I was a sentimental thing,
Threw my heart away each spring;
Now a spring romance hasnt got a chance
Promised my first dance to winter;
All Ive got to shows a splinter for my little fling!

Spring this year has got me feeling like a horse that never left the post;
I lie in my room staring up at the ceiling,
Spring can really hang you up the most!

Mornings kiss wakes trees and flowers,
And to them Id like to drink a toast;
I walk in the park just to kill the lonely hours,
Spring can really hang you up the most.

All afternoon those birds twitter tweet,
I know the tune, this is love, this is it!
Heard it before and I know the score,
And Ive decided that spring is a bore!

Love seemed sure around the new year,
Now its april, love is just a ghost;
Spring arrived on time, only what became of you, dear?
Spring can really hang you up the most!
Spring can really hang you up the most!

Spring is here, theres no mistaking
Robins building nests from coast to coast;
My heart tries to sing so they wont hear it breaking,
Spring can really hang you up the most!

College boys are writing sonnets,
In the tender passion theyre engrossed;
But Im on the shelf with last years easter bonnets,
Spring can really hang you up the most!

Love came my way, I hope it would last;
We had our day, now thats all in the past!
Spring came along a season of son,
Full of sweet promise but womething went wrong!

Doctors once prescribed a tonic,
Sulphur and moloasses was the dose;
Didnt help a bit, my condition must be chronic,
Spring can really hang you up the most!

All alone, the partys over,
Old man winter was a gracious host;
But when you keep praying for snow to hide the clover
Spring can really hang you up the most!

I love this song … it’s the perfect encapsulation of what bittersweet is. I never really fully appreciated the mood swings that the change of seasons bring until actually working full time in Melbourne. Winter gets really glum in the final weeks and getting out of bed in a cold weatherboard house is a challenge and a half. But all this turns around when you get that light summery smell in the air …. And mounds of tissues start piling up, not because everyone has taken to their beds with colds, but because there’s a marked increase of pollen in the air as flowers start getting frisky with the warmer weather.

There’s literally a Spring in my step during Spring. Everything seems a little crisper, sharper somehow. The way the outlines of buildings in the city seem to almost slice into the blue sky above. The way the sun is warm on your face, but the wind chill cuts through your thin jumper that you put on now just because it is no longer winter by the calendar. There’s also a sense of hope and promise, you may have misspent the past of youth, and the future seems to have flat lined … but today! today! in the sun, nothing seems worth complaining about.

The Magnolia tree flowering in our backyard  signals the start of Spring for us with its pinky white flowers that really don’t stay on the tree for very long … a light gust of wind is enough to send them propelling to a murky brown death on the lawn below. For some reason I always think about friends and what they mean to me. We’re lucky to have such a rich tapestry to draw from. We’ve culled the fly-by-nighters and fair-weather acquaintances. And what we’re left with is so richly rewarding in so many ways … friends with no expectations. I always jokingly say that I’m not looking for new friends, but there is truth in this. Why would I need more when I have so much already? 

But I also think of family … and can’t help but feel a small pang of loss for childhood. This is my adult life now, separate and in some ways so very solitary. I no longer hide underneath my mother’s voluminous sari. My father no longer teases me with funny noises as he tickles my sides. No more shared epicurean joys at the dinner table, laughing at Peter Sellers and his minky, my brother C does not sing Misty at the piano, Jonah doesn’t show me pictures from his Birds of Prey book or scare me with stories of devilled Dobermans prowling the jungles around our estate, I don’t hear Benji quietly singing Dan Fogelberg’s Longer while strumming his guitar, left ear gently resting against the polished wooden frame listening to the acoustic vibrations coming from within .. they’re not laughing at my obsession with Abba and dressing up in the angel’s costume from the church nativity play ….

 Aah …Spring! It can really hang you up the most.