What’s the one thing Cubs fans and Sox fans, Democrats and Republicans, men and women, youngsters and oldsters can agree on?
Spring!
And for the optimists among us, it’s almost here. Trees and lawns and birds hint at its arrival.
Aside from its beauty and energy, spring is important to us because it’s the most another-chance season of the year.
Everything seems more possible in spring:
Teams, candidates, vacations.
Even marriages and families get a boost, because the blue skies, red suns and warm temperatures all get together and whisper a “you can do it.”
From its 17th Century origins, America has always been a springtime country. We were always pushing back the next frontier, because instinctively we’ve always believed there’s something better out there if we just go for it.
It’s in our nature to keep on the move and take another chance.
Lately America has become so multicultural, so gender conscious, so politically correct that maybe we’re forgetting some of the forces that have traditionally bonded us.
While I drink in another spring, I’m beginning to see people from parks to harbors to basketball courts to back-yard fences getting closer than they have all winter long.
That’s good.
That just might be a metaphor for what a big complex city and nation like ours needs:
Getting closer.
