The anticipation of spring has me longing to write about growth, that natural urge to enrich and improve ourselves and our lives. On this bright and sunny morning I decide, for some reason, the public library is the place that will bring inspiration.
Except for wifi, the C.E. Brehm Memorial Public Library hasn’t changed much since I came here as a child. I walk up the staircase toward the second floor where I sometimes studied in high school and become lost in the memory of a little girl in a plaid dress and ponytails reaching up to tightly grasp the oak banister. My hand slides along the railing, worn silky smooth from use, and I find myself on the third floor where the children’s section used to be, and still is.
My childlike voice surprises me when I timidly whisper hello to the librarian. I quietly position myself at a small table hoping to be inspired by an ancient budding elm tree just outside the window. Sitting awkwardly in a small wooden chair, I ignore my laptop and let every sight, sound, and smell of the familiar space wash over me like a spell.
Rising dreamlike, I slowly run my hand along a bookshelf, lightly touching the spines of Sounder, James and the Giant Peach, The Secret Garden, The Chronicles of Narnia. I smile at them like old friends.
For nearly an hour I try to focus on writing, but I’m distracted by a little girl I once knew sitting cross-legged in the corner lost in the big woods with Laura and Pa. I shake her out of my mind and read the quote I had jotted down by Mr. Twain.
“What’s the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No small atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows – it must grow smaller or larger, better or worse – it cannot stand still. In other words, we change, and must change, constantly and keep on changing as long as we live.”
Springtime helps us understand what Twain was talking about. Butterflies and birds, flowers and leaves, offer tangible reminders of the miracle and beauty of growth. The transformation that comes each spring is easier for us to appreciate than the much slower moral, mental, and personal growth to which Twain refers.
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional,” said John Maxwell. But grow we must, as individuals, as a nation, as a global society. Going backwards, regression, is not growth, even when shrouded as nostalgia, heritage, or tradition. Growth is natural, essential, often painful, but ever so elegant.
We may find ourselves sitting in the same place, in the same chair, reading the same book as we did a lifetime ago. We should drink in the memories, yet delight in knowing every feeling, every thought, every word is new, because we are new. We are faithfully growing in body, mind, and spirit, like flowers in springtime. §
“Watching something grow is good for morale. It helps us believe in life.”
~ Myron S. Kaufman
The Simple Swan 