if Houghton were the bellwether for holidays

Even though the original event of Christmas, I was told while growing up, took place where there were palm trees and warmth, the lights and tinsel hanging in the palm trees of Los Angeles -- when we lived there -- were a sure indication that our ways of celebrating Christmas developed someplace other than around that original manger. Living now in the Upper Peninsula, I understand Easter as I never could in California: it takes being under snow for 5 or 6 months to understand, viscerally, why we celebrate the return of green and warmth.

But had it been populations in the Upper Peninsula who determined when something like Easter should be celebrated, it would still be a few weeks off. We would celebrate when the marsh marigolds were blooming, and the trout lilies, when even the last remnants of snow -- in the crooks still now under the shaded north sides of pine stands -- were gone. It is not yet warm enough to be out dancing, hanging pastel things in trees. But, still, we have begun to celebrate. It's nothing that needs planning: we step outside into the light and the green and the sky are simply enough to make us joyful, unbidden. People are in shorts, and it is just above 40 degrees. People giggle.

It is also not too early to eat chocolate, nor is it too early to admire what the snow melt contributes to the Sturgeon River, south of Baraga, where the small canyons of basalt look -- in their perpendicular breakings and moss cover -- like chilled remains of ancient castles. There was much noise there earlier today, when we walked through the woods to the river: lots of small ducks were passing through, small crisp black and white ones flying over, and other birds, some warblers hidden back in where we could not see them. And there was so much water, loud water, gunmetal colored except where it was pushing over the slabs of rock and the light made it yellow and brown because of the tannin and at the edges all sorts of moss and moisture-liking greens were pushing up.