…it's the mud, it's the mud
There comes a time just before spring bursts on the landscape when I feel impatient and out of sorts, as if my energy is also waiting for some signal to emerge. Tired of the cold and longing for soothing green, it seems no matter what I initiate, it doesn’t go anywhere. I’m stuck in the mud. In northern parts of the country this time is actually called mud season (and I don’t recommend a stay in Vermont in late March or early April!). So it doesn't surprise me that the song playing over and over in my mind these days is Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim’s appropriately titled “The Waters of March.” In his English version, the lyrics playfully catalog the debris carried along by a river swollen with March rain and mud. He points to the random evidence of the discards of both nature and humanity—the reality of life—but weaves in the subtle signs of renewal and hope along the river bank. Spring is coming, don’t give up, the song says, as a way of reminding us not to stay stuck in the ugly. Hear the birds, feel the wind, notice the fox, smell the earth. You don’t even have to know the lyrics to understand the meaning of the song, since the lilting melody carries its message to take heart and lighten up.
It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of the slope
It's a beam, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart