rites

The debris and grey-brown earth that has emerged from beneath dirty piles of snow are being tended to by sun and hands ready to start planting their gardens. Life is slowly growing through the ashen ground. Every day the verdance creeps to the surface. Sunlight fights for more and more domain each day. I crave the warmth and dry earth and embrace the longer days, but I know that it is springtime in the rockies and I have to be patient. Like the longtime locals, they know that planting their gardens now is asking for a late spring storm to come and lay a deep coat of fresh snow. Same goes for my mind. I can embrace the life that spring breathes into our valley, but I know that waving goodbye to freezing nights and falling snow is as good as an invitation to bring them back for an encore.

The skatepark has seen many hands digging and throwing snow from the bowls one shovel full at a time. For two weeks the levels have been dropping in the big bowl as the piles have been growing on the ouskirts of the park. It's back breaking labor and the academy kids have been really good about working hard to clear skateable concrete. It was thursday night when the shallow end of the big bowl and a big chunk of the street area were swept clean and sessioned. Funny that the local heads haven't done much by the way of work, but the first evening the concrete is swept free of pebbles and dried to perfection, they are present and ready for action. This springtime ritual is painful and fullfilling, frustrating and something I crave.