Over the stretch of time its become clear that in order for the human race to become more at peace with themselves, its appropriate to be able to talk well as much as we would listen well. Especially among various Native American cultures and Buddhists, one's ability to listen far outweighs ones ability to speak. Still human beings have the physical senses to do both equally well. Because Western society has become somewhat overwhelming in its breadth and scope, that value of "silence being golden" has devalued the valuable concept of speech somewhat. This is a vast and difficult subject to explore. So with the risk of being egoist I will use examples from my own life to illustrate different points on this particular subject. During my school years the main quality that was negatively attributed to me by both family and teachers alike was how much I talked. Now I had a constant stream of consciousness that seemed to find its way to my mouth faster than others could hear it. Since this was my natural way of communicating, I found it difficult to understand why so many people objected to it. And that did, and actually still does, make me quite irritated at times. When I slow down my speaking voice and leave enormous space between thoughts, the things I say are better appreciated but conversing with others this way is mentally and even physically uncomfortable for me to do. This comes to the fore during different events in my life as well. Last weekend I visited a store called Portland Trading Co. in the city of Portland,Maine. It was a wonderfully homey environment that sold semi formal dress wear,post cards and had a very personalized, historically fascinating decor. The man who started this business's name was Kazeem. I related instantly to his own stream of conscious manner of speaking. Having a fascinating Nigerian/American heritage, I was captivated by his intuitive cultural understanding of himself and others. He had a very independent mind. I learned I could listen to others who had much to say as well as I could be on the other end of such a conversation. Yet I also understand based on my own history how that mode of speech is not universally relatable. One of the important points Kazeem made which I will use to refer to my own point on human conversation is the importance of empathy. One thing I've noticed in this more careerist world is that many people are now convinced that the only way to change the world for the better is to mainly concentrating on changing ones self. This naturally leads to a hectic lifestyle in which a strong level of conversing becomes too difficult and time consuming for said person to handle. For a person such as myself whose lifestyle is rather individual, it makes it all the more complicated to communicate the points that I do have. This has a habit of leading to problems in basic tolerance and can in fact result in heated conversations with less understanding individuals. Another area where this lack of conversational empathy comes into play is on the romantic level. Naturally the very concept of a romantic affiliation between any two human beings at its core requires a deep level of empathetic thought. When the only emotions one vocally espouses have to do with their own self, its sometimes next to impossible to create a balanced level of emotional understanding. In such cases, I feel its very appropriate to speak a great deal to such a person. To show your passion, commitment, intellect and willingness to advance as loving companions. Friendship functions on much the same level. If one has ears to hear, they also should understand the importance of using their voice to speak. It has,still does and might always make me feel personally discouraged when I am told by others that my conversational skills are objectionable. Yet after years of learning-sometimes the hard way, about human socialization I inwardly value my stream of conscientious conversation. I'd even go as far as saying its something many people could actually learn from if they gave me more of a chance. In a strange way, its actually helped me to listen to others better by understanding how to relate to other different methods of conversing as they do to my own. The key with conversation is to learn as much as you can from it: how to speak, when to speak, when to listen and remember always to mutually benefit from the experience. The more people understand this truth, and each other the more contented and settled I feel we'd all be.
So much goes into an individual such as myself trying to generalize about the entire sociological structure of a particular decade. A good example of the difficulties involved in doing such a thing would be when I decided to discuss the decade of the 1990's. Physically speaking this decade has been over for fourteen years now. As with any period of time one can imagine, it had its trials and errors. The most interesting part of the 1990's, looking back on it well over a decade after the fact is how it laid the groundwork (for better or worse) for the culture we have today. In fact its still very much a part of my personal life too. I was never the same after the 1990's. And in all honesty I am still recovering from the influence of its societal maelstrom. The years 1990 and 1991 were by and large a time that was filled with much hope for the future. Star Trek The Next Generation and I'll Fly Away were on television-giving a sense of hope for the future and historical closure on a dark chapter of the fast. Operation Desert Storm came to a close and the troops began coming home. The better qualities of the 1980's looked to be resolving themselves in a new decade that, at first promised hope and above all a strong sense of futurism to society in terms of the culture at large and our technological development. An age of balance about healthy living, taking care of our natural environment and genuine respect and tolerance of other cultures was ascendant. Than at the end of 1991, as far as I was concerned,something went terribly wrong.
At the end of 1991 a new music video cropped up during my weekly viewing of Friday Night Videos. I had my naturally curly hair about shoulder length and was probably wearing faded jeans and a neon colored t-shirt. This video came on by a band called Nirvana. The music was so loud and the melody so frightening I backed away from the TV screen-watching images of this pep squad cheering in this frightening,muddy colored mess. This unwashed looking guitar player, who I later learned was named Kurt Cobain, sang almost unintelligibly until screaming out "HERE WE ARE NOW,ENTERTAIN US!". I remember going in the kitchen for a snack waiting to see my favorite video at that time which was "Do The Bart Man". I figured this horrifying video was a fluke and life would go on. It was not quite to be in fact. That following autumn of 1992 after what had basically been a good rest of 1991 I began middle school. The first day I arrived there most of the children looked like that dirty man in Nirvana's video I'd seen. And many acted just as mean and aggressive as well. I was being bullied relentlessly-now for wearing the "wrong clothing". I heard it said recently the 90's were like the 60's upside down, and I cannot disagree. Instead of clothing defining a person,it could now make or break them. I had a profound revelation about how life was doing to be after this horrendous experience. And how many 12 year old's are even supposed to have anything at all profound on their minds? Somehow though, it was now clear that I was going to come of age in an era that culturally rejected poetry and embraced realism. In the 1970's and 80's music was often a motivating factor in enacting social change. By the mid 1980s Bob Geldof, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Sting and bands such as U2 were all directing their musical messages towards humanistic concerns-from farmers rights to homelessness. By 1993 and 1994, the majority of the songs that seemed to direct the public consciousness had a more to do with violence-either by aggressively harming another or flat out suicide. The most popular musical styles of the day-grunge rock and gangsta rap captured that spirit. While anything that sounded joyous and spirited seemed to be a source only for laughter.Much of this culture I call now "alternative culture". They were often famous for a wholesale rejection of anything from the previous decade,often with hostile vitriol. 1980's cultural icons such as Pee Wee Herman and Michael Jackson-who represented humor and kindness, were made into public scandals during this time. While Courtney Love and Shuge Knight, who basically represented avarice and organized criminal behavior, were elevated to the role of pop culture icons. The focus the public had on the news media also shifted accordingly. Legitimate news programs became secondary sources for vital information to the supermarket tabloid,as well as their televised equivalents such as Hard Copy and Inside Edition. This in turn led to the development of many superstitious conspiracy theories and revisionist history that captured the attention of people of all ages. People's humor and basic language was becoming more cynical and nihilistic. One of the major cultural factors of this era was its tendency to confuse expressiveness with pretentiousness. In fact "pretentiousness" suddenly become something of a buzz word to describe most any music,film or work of literature that celebrated the poetically emotive creative ethic. This was a time when those children born to the baby boomers,known as the 13th or "Generation X" later on, were in adolescence or adulthood. Those born during the 1960's were the young celebrities of this era. Including those like Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. They resented their parents for what they saw as a failed attempt to create a bohemian utopia, and saw them as selling out. They turned inward and became largely more self concerned, with an extremely corporate sense of thinking as a thin veil to a layer of arrogance. Personally I had many positive experiences in the 1990's. Visited some new places and new some often good and interesting people as acquaintances and sometimes friends. But it was a decade I still celebrate being over to this day because I found much of it culturally unendurable. Even to this day those who call the 1990's their generation still often flatly refuse to admit the flaws that defined every aspect of popular culture and the psychology of that era. If one reads all of the above objectively, and looks at what they see wrong in the world around them most of its seeds were planted not in fact in the 1980's-as of course the 1990's zeitgeist falsely championed throughout the decade. But these seeds of disillusion that often defines the post 9/11 world were in fact planted in that decade where the 60's were in fact turned upside down on its head.
When I was eight years old I watched an European released animated special on a program called Long Ago And Far Away-hosted by the late, great James Earl Jones. The special itself was called Bill And Bunny. It was about autism. And how a child who had it effected her mother, father and older sibling. It was a topic that at that time had not really been discussed in depth before. And I'd personally never been exposed to it. It was told in a beautifully poetic manner that appealed both to children and their parents. A rare feet. Two decades later I looked up, and it seems about one in every ten children or more are living with some form of autism. As I've stated in my YouTube videos many times, even people who aren't diagnosed with autism are referred to as having an autistic manner. It's extremely puzzling to me how autism has become such a modern legacy of society. It is not lost on me why one of the symbols of autism awareness is the four multi-colored puzzle pieces. Autism constantly reveals itself as a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Those who live with it often show genius level intuition and intelligence. On the other hand what should be a simple social situation might drive them into a state of panic defined by repetitious behaviors. These individuals seem, on the surface to live in a world of their own. I know this because one of my cousins lives with autism. And I have myself witnessed his outlook on life. April is Autism Awareness Month. It is also Poetry Awareness Month. I was not aware of the latter until yesterday in fact. And the more I thought about it, a rather profound truth revealed itself in my mind. That truth is that autism and the concept of poetry are actually very complimentary.
One of the qualities I've personally observed in society as I matured was something of a rejection of abstract thinking. You could look at it much the same way as when in the late 1920's when silent films transitioned into "talkies": the medium of motion pictures become less of a poetic one and more of a realistic one. The television show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine summed it up in a show called If Wishes Were Horses: that so many people dream of places they'll never go, things they'll never see instead of paying adequate attention to their real lives. Since this particular concept has continued to evolve itself, I feel it has in turn de-evolved an element of society. If one doesn't take their hopes and dreams seriously any longer, than the realistic medium of commerce becomes the driving force and a given civilization will tend to become soulless on many levels. I've noticed this very situation occurring in every segment of life. Adjective words such as "geek" and "hysteria" are constantly used in a cold and improper context with no real care to their true meaning and original degrading intent. So if so many people have actually forgotten what respect means, than it's nearly impossible for have respect for what's happened to people around you-such as those living with Autism. That term in itself is sometimes even used, as I mentioned earlier as a pejorative term in much as the same manner as "retarded" was decades earlier. Still the technology of science,from the internet to micro circuitry has also steadily evolved with the advent of the computer age. Since the human soul in general has tended to be more and more deprived of imagination and poetry in the past fifteen years or so, there hasn't been enough agreement and focus on what the exact causes of autism are and how to deal with it physically. Especially since all too many researches have pursued the study of autism primarily to gain profit and recognition. During my elementary school years, the study of poetry was not among my favorite topics. I felt in my pre-teen years that studying the forms of poetry too much spoiled the poem. Trying to explain poetry seemed totally self defeating as the medium was more about feeling and expression-that it was equally about what was said as much as how one said it. As I got older and began to learn about the lives and experiences of poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Nikki Geovanni and Alan Ginsberg the meaning and intent behind their work in fact revealed itself to me in a similar manner to how the subject of this very article did, actually. One thing that's become clear with time is that while autistic individuals have a very unique way of learning, they are more than capable of learning. Even though I am not autistic, my own more 1960's era abstractly creative mind also processes knowledge and information in a somewhat different way than expected by most other people as well. When you boil it all down the real issue of the public's attitude towards both autism and poetry is an appreciation for that which is unique and unknown. I was at a local record store a year or so ago called Bullmoose and I saw an autistic man who my family and I had known for some time. He was listening to headphones on the listening station. Most of my life I'd been told autistic people had mechanical thought processes and had little to know ability to abstract or be at all clever. I never took that to heart for one moment, and on that day at Bullmoose my own theory was confirmed. This man was dancing and singing to himself to the music he heard on the headphones-in his own world definitely but just as surely a world that was defined by an embrace of creative thinking. He was clearly moved by the music on a deep emotional level perhaps beyond even my high level of emotionalism. That confirmed my own personal theory: people who live with autism are highly poetic. Perhaps more poetic and creative than some other people. And that is something to be truly appreciated.
On that winters day in 2004 when Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg and five of his fellow students founded this small social network site in his dorm, I'm unsure if he could've known that in a decades time that Facebook would become the defining example of a successful online social network. It allows artists and photographers to share their work with other people with every growing options for personal privacy. And with its friend finding options it allows long lost friends to reunite after sometimes years of not knowing where the other was. People can share thoughts and accompanying pictures to illustrate them. And with its additionally growing connectivity to other websites all over the internet its become the most popular and successful social network site in the history of the medium. I myself have made at least two videos for YouTube on the subject of Facebook and at least a half dozen more that reference the site. One of the most significant things one can say about Facebook are that it's champions and detractors are extremely electric-in the sense that each have equal and opposite reactions towards the social network. As it is in most cases I see myself as standing very much as a type of dormant nucleolus in the center of the molecule of those two opposing electrons of personal opinion to extend the metaphor. I can definitely see logic and truth on both sides of the dialog among people regarding Facebook. So here I am going to present to you the two opposing arguments as I hear them and than my own thoughts on the subject. Those who basically oppose Facebook seem to come at the issue from the points of few of generationalism and personal security. The first aspect of this point of view maintains that in the past decade, the level of access to intellectual knowledge, including access to the internet has grown so large that it intimidates most people. And as a result, social networks such as Facebook have come to showcase the lowest common denominator of intelligence among what some of it's users elect to post on that site-such as semi profane language and inappropriate photography. People making this point often tend to cite the same argument with Facebook and social networking that they would tend to have with television: that it does not promote the same level of imagination and creativity they were reared on as children mostly from the very different sociopolitical ethic of that particular era. Security on just about any website has been a major topic of discourse since the medium began. Social networking, especially on a site as popular and widely used as Facebook, brings that discourse to new heights of heated debate. Again generationalism plays into this to some degree. If someone reared in the era before internet is themselves online , they will tend to be inclined to use the medium mainly to read articles from the news media-which in itself espouses mainly the point of view of others in their given age group. Online media forums such as Yahoo! and Google News often showcase articles that warn parents and relatives of Facebook users of updates to the site that compromise security, often using language rife with scare tactics. In reality Facebook has many opportunities for online bullying and stalkers if ones Facebook page isn't secured properly. Yet it can also in reality be secured with the proper knowledge and settings on ones Facebook page. Those who support and advocate Facebook tend to be of the opinion that Facebook liberates humanity-especially young people. It has become a transient world in the past two decades. And it's difficult to maintain long term friendships for young people where it was less complicated in their parents generation-when families would tend to live in the same community for many years and had each other for companionship and support. With social networks as vast and available worldwide as Facebook has become the possibility emerges for people not only to reconnect with old friends but to make new ones-often from places they'd previously never have access to. The level of human understanding and educational possibilities that arise from this are vast and exciting. While the sites detractors will also add that many will add friends on Facebook simply as a form of online socializing contests or to play online games easier, those exciting possibilities to understand others remain. Probably the most positive aspects of Facebook's existence stems from this possibility of understanding. And that is the sites ability to affect social change. Not many years ago Facebook was indirectly the catalyst for a peaceful political revolution in Egypt that, in another case, could've easily ended in ruined lives and bloodshed among its participants. The historic election of President Barack Obama, for both of his terms as president, have occurred during the height of Facebook's enormous popularity. And it could be clearly seen during both elections how Obama's unique and humanistic technique of running his campaign owed a great deal to the different Facebook community pages created by social organizations in and out of the capital who supported his administration and it's goals for the future. Local, national and even international political figures have also been able to network with the public via Facebook in the same manner as well. This also extends into how Facebook has come to champion grassroots level social politicking as well. Activists groups such as the Occupy movement and organizations hoping to put an end to sociological scourges such as homophobia and weapons of mass destruction have thrived and expanded because of Facebook. Just a few days ago, an organization hoping to defeat the homophobic bill DOMA in Washington encouraged Facebook users to place a red "equality" symbol on their Facebook profile and a special banner behind it-in order to show support for the freedom for people of the same sex to be allowed to get married legally in America. The change on which the current presidential administration is encouraging for America and the rest of the world is in fact being helped along greatly by the networking possibilities Facebook has provided. So there it stands. Two sides of the same coin in the social dialog about the social network known as Facebook. Both sides are actually complimentary to each other in many ways. While it is true that on occasion Facebook has made abrupt site and security changes without announcing them to their users, and while some undesirable individuals have used the medium to cause difficulties for other users, these factors (as with many parts of life) are really based in human frailties that existed long before Facebook-let alone the internet. In terms of Facebook's positive traits, its method of allowing people to interact is extremely innovative. As well as separating family and friends, the transient society of the last two decades has made affecting change on society next to impossible symptomatically of that reality. Facebook's main advantage is to open doors between people that nearly closed due to a happenstance of a generational perversity. And if Facebook is to represent that open door, in the long term that could only beget good.
At the age of 13 I was very excited when my family announced we'd be taking a vacation in Quebec City. Being an enthusiastically budding photographer, it was a thrilling prospect to have a camera in my hand surrounded by all of the cities classic European architectural and general flavor. Well aware that French was the language spoken there I did a small amount of studying of the language with my mother before we departed. What I did not know then (and do now) is that the Quebecois speak a different dialect of the language referred to as "Cunook French". The result was that I would would speak in all the proper forms,and not the substances. And with a than current air of nationalism in the area, my attempts were not particularly welcomed to say the least. That was an extremely valuable lesson to learn: that there are far more than one way to speak any given language. As I later learned, that went for English even more so than others. Each region,sometimes each state,of America actually has it's own turn of phrases and colloquialisms completely unique to them that may either puzzle or (at worst) offend some outsiders. A lot of people I've run into are actually rather arrogant about communicating. The refuse to learn much about a foreign language when travelling abroad, yet they expect the opposite from foreigners-for them to instantly know English as a second language. Along with some people in the world talking very fast when they believe you know even a hint of their own language, most cultures seem extremely protective of their different ways of communicating. So if different countries have trouble communicating, and perhaps even fight to the point of warring over this in the long and short of things,how do a small group of people or even just two of them manage to communicate among themselves? My observation of late has been that each individual human being is very much like their own culture when it comes to verbal, and for that matter most other kinds of communication. In the case of the individual two factors seem to play into this: environment and upbringing. As indicated wonderfully in a YouTube video about My Little Pony fans dealing with hateful comments (as an example) ,a causation man from Mississippi may have very little culturally in common with an African American family from New York City. This is likely to result in enormous communication breakdowns and misunderstandings. The same issues of upbringing and environment can effect communication between people living right down the street. Especially in strongly economically divided communities such as where I live, I may have as much trouble making myself clear to my next door neighbor as I would with an East Indian Fakir. The conclusion that I've come to personally is that, especially with the dawn of the internet bridging cultural gaps and now even translating languages, that ethnicity and even religious differences are not the main source for human conflict as much. That it's our inability to communicate important ideas to each other, sometimes through our own arrogance and vanity, that create the majority of modern personality conflicts on many levels. Perhaps one way to begin to solve this is just trying to understand how one of your friend thinks. They will respect you for it, and you'll probably learn something for your own efforts as well.
For many years I've wracked my brain trying to understand how the 1980's,and somehow consequently myself along with it,has become one of the most controversial and often outright maligned decades in recent history. The use of the phrase "I love the 80's" in a laughably ironic tone goes far beyond the Vh1 set too. Basically it all boils down to a comment I saw made on a YouTube video to the effect that "the 1980's equals kitsch". For those reading not in the know kitsch is,in a nutshell,a single word adjective for anything of bad taste. On the other hand,as I've continued to scratch my head trying to figure out how the 80's was such an allegedly horrible time it's almost made me wonder if "bad taste" itself isn't a completely subjective term in and of itself. One part of the 80's that really helped me understand how to define generational differences...was actually a PBS documentary about another controversial decade called Making Sense Of The Sixties,which was completed in 1989. It was a brilliant presentation as it humanistically looked into each element that made that decade what it was and bought them all into focus through the lives of it's many participants and events. Due to my appreciation for this approach I am doing to take a similar approach,from my own point of view about the different elements of the 1980's as it affected the life of my family,friends and myself. And of course I'll add to this brew what I later learned from people from my generation-the "80's generation" who experienced this time somewhat differently. So begins my little examination on this era. The first issue I want to set straight about the 1980's was the music. During adolescence I heard the music of that era referred to mainly in corporate terminology. For example,it was often said to me by music lovers I talked to that a lot of artists didn't get their due because only megastar artists who were selling records in the millions such as Michael Jackson,Madonna,Prince,Bruce Springsteen,etc. In the case of Jackson and Springsteen however,both of them were continuing to deliver music with important messages that,especially with Ronald Reagan and his complete misunderstanding of "Born In The U.S.A" as a patriotic anthem,were either going unnoticed or not fully absorbed and trusted. As for the music itself? Synthesizers and electronics,a scientific toy by and large in the previous decade,were becoming more mainstream in pop music. However,this creative thread from the previous two decades was so deeply ingrained into pop culture to create a vital and artistic hybrid of those two ethics.
The next issue about this decade is external fashion. One enormous factor this decade's detractors have used against it are the culture's seeming emphasis on money,power and general bigness. In fact those words often go hand and hand with any mention of the decade in pop culture today. During the early 90's I remember being rather violently bullied for simply wearing faded jeans and a neon colored T-shirt. A few school mates even used the would "heresy" to describe my manner of attire. One of the qualities I continue to admire about 80's fashion is it's outlook on the human body as one abstractly shaped canvas. Well all of the bright and colorful patterns,and the unique designs of both men and woman's outwear of the time it was,again a complete extension of the fashion statements of the post counterculture world. Today many still laugh at this type of fashion. Of course that also goes with a lack of appreciation of more abstract art in some quarters in recent years I would tend to gather. Another major issue of the 80's,and perhaps the one where the divisions are seeded,comes with ones own personal upbringing. It's very true that most people idealize their childhood if it's lucky enough to be stable and carefree in general. But in this case,I'll start speaking for myself. During the 80's,I lived in what could be described as a suburban neighborhood. There are good days and bad days,like any other time. But when there was a new song,a new dance or a new movie it seemed to make people want to do something unique,self expressive and make a difference. Problems,and I faced some big ones even then,were something that could be overcome'd with a better future. Sadly I later learned some people my own age,in other more urban parts of America,liked a completely opposite life-in communities torn apart by drug and violence related upheaval. Still however I can see,somewhere that there was at least the seeds of a better future even in that very decade. What could any of what I am saying really set straight about the 1980's? Well as one cultural critic ones said,the key to the change in culture was that the 90's were the 60's turned upside down. Even though that decade concluded with a balanced budget and general security,the popular culture completed rejected anything associated with the previous three decades-with enormous levels of insulting disrespect. I was not involved in this culture at all and feel I was one of the few,at least in my area,who saw it go down as it were as an outsider looking in. I feel it was discouragement on the part of the pop culture icons of the early 90's that set people back so far emotionally. There was a perception the baby boomer parents of most of the youth culture of the 90's had failed to create their perceived utopia. And their children,labeled Generation X,decayed into different forms of passive emotional suicide. Sadly,such as in the case of cultural icons of the day like Kurt Cobain,in physical suicide as well. Now we're living in a new century,a new millennium. When I look around me the honest truth I understand,with no bias and/or cynicism on my part clouding my views,is the majority of society-including the "millennial generation" following my own are still deeply entrenched in the same sarcastic pop culture and lack of hope that defined the 1990's. That ever important thread of hope,vision and the thrill of color and innovation that was a key to the 60's,70's and 80's has become by and large something to laugh at,or pity. I'd say if these four separate decades were contestants in some type of temporal Olympic games,the 90's would easily win the gold metal in terms of influence. Now true that decade wasn't in fact a total cultural wasteland. But my point is,neither was the 80's. And I think if more people started looking with clarity and objectivity at the best qualities of that era,they would need to indulge in so many silly arguments about what was so wrong with that era. And in doing so maybe,just maybe as Michael Jackson said we could make the world a better place by taking a look at ourselves,and making that change.
About an hour ago something happened that I am not sure everyone around me was thinking about. The vernal equinox has arrived. And well most people,even I refer to it as the beginning of Spring time. The image you see is that of a Krokus blossom,one of the first flowers to bloom in my home state and of which there have been sightings lately. For the past couple of weeks,the local weather has been very typical of the oncoming time of the year. What many here call "mud season" had begun with the snow clearing away off the ground and life looking to be ready to re-emerge. Of course just as the season officially arrived the metaphorical Mother Nature played a nasty trick: another "nor Easter" storm to wreck havoc on New England. Spring is a very interesting time in the state of Maine. If one is of the more cynical bent,it can mean a mere extension of winter before the arrival of a presumably short summer. On the more positive side,it means the possibility of effectively cleaning ones home,garage and/or vehicle. It's also a time of Easter eggs for some and Passover seder's. Sometimes on the sadder note,as it has been for me by varying degrees for many years,it can also be a time of unpleasant nasal allergies from the abundance of trees and grass budding. More over though I tend to look upon it as a time of renewal from what can be a cruel winter where I live,one where on nights such as tonight it's complicated even to leave your home.
Even though it is by definition an awkward season for New England,often rife with growing pains and many unexpected climactic changes,Spring is always a time that I look forward to every year. For one,with each snow storm it's good to know that each one is getting closer to being the last one of the winter. The flowers begin to bloom,and the world is around you is just going to get a little more colorful. For me that means an open door to a wider range of photographic opportunities in nature. That also combines with what's probably the most promising aspect of spring in Maine: the warmer temperatures. I wish everyone a happy springtime,despite unexpected snow storms and to enjoy the first day of this special season of rebirth!
