Call of the Spring

I don’t remember any dialogue from the day, but it was spring 2009. Late February, maybe early March. I had taken the SAT in Belleville that morning in an attempt to score better than my ACT score, which had been OK but not good enough for scholarships. 

After the test, I drove back to Highland to my new girlfriend’s house. Her name was Janie, but she went by her middle name, Brooke. We’d been dating for a couple months at that point, and we were each other’s first serious relationship as seniors in high school.

We decided to take her dog, Oliver, on a walk to the nearby VFW, which had baseball fields. Earlier in my childhood, I played close to 100 baseball games on those diamonds, and I watched 100 more. But at that time of the year, they hadn’t been touched throughout the winter, and they hadn’t been prepped for the upcoming summer games. That day, we were just interested in a place to let Oliver run free while still being confined by fences.

We sat down in the outfield. Oliver moseyed. We talked. Maybe we kissed. Most of the grass was still dormant, waiting for more sun before would explode with uncontainable growth. But the smell of spring was in the air, and by that I mean the smell of decay. Organic matter breaking down and adding to the rich soil. The smell of decaying vegetation might not seem romantic or exciting, but without it, there is no spring. No new life.

She was wearing low rise jeans a Sprite t-shirt. It was in style in 2009, but that style of t-shirt would look ridiculously small in 2021. When she reclined on our picnic blanket, there wasn’t enough material to cover her stomach. I didn’t mind, and I’m sure she didn’t either. The sun’s rays were getting stronger every day, and our pale skin wanted every second of sun exposure it could get.

Call of the Spring is a love song. It tells the story of two young lovers, and it parallels the story of humans’ love for spring and sunshine and rebirth after a long, punishing winter.