Burst into Spring

By Courtney Pierce

There’s a reason Stravinsky wrote the “Rite of Spring” back in 1913. The shock of the new. Dissident and harmonic. Smooth and violent. The piece embodies our inner core

of change from winter to spring with all its raging hormones.

The spring season begins and ends with weather, the tease of one warm day after a crust of morning frost. The birdbath yawns to reject the decomposing leaves. Heat waves whirl and retreat, but not enough to push back dormant eggs of hatching insects. In the early morning hours, birds awaken with a piccolo call for their species. If one stands in the dark to listen, breath won’t make a sound as it streams and dissipates. In an instant, clouds boil and blacken to drop an opaque curtain of hail.

I love the spring season, the renewal of it the earth, the savagery of its power to awaken

our primal instincts. The promise of fresh vegetables begins with taking a chance on the wild weather: tornadoes, wall clouds, and flying fat snowflakes. I’m never more motivated and childlike than with the unpredictability of spring. Grab a spade and join me to dig in the dirt, grounded in mud. The earth comes out of cold storage and rises up to fertilizer-heated starters of broccoli, carrots, beans, and peas.

With spring, too, there comes an unseen energy that powers animals from within. Romance is in the air, at any age. I can attest to this. At 57, I’m getting married in June, and I feel like a teenager. The pull of a mate is indescribable, and not just to take out the garbage or fix a faulty electrical outlet. This mate's a keeper for airy and heavy conversation, wishes and dreams, and for fantasies of life. I'm a lucky girl this spring.

For thousands of years, not much has changed in our internal commitment to the change of season. Well...maybe one exception . . . the post office. What ever happened to “No matter rain, snow, sleet, or hail, the post office will deliver the mail”? In this last snowstorm, it took two weeks to get my mail. For some reason, though, it only to took days to get my WiFi and cable TV back. And even less for the only entry in the mailbox: my honeymoon lingerie. Hmmm....the old and the new.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her bossy cat. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, She Writes, and Sisters in Crime. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

 

The Dushane Sisters are back in Indigo Lake. More laughs, more tears...and more trouble. Protecting Mom's reputation might get the sisters killed―or give one of them the story she's been dying to live.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's trilogy about the Dushane sisters. Beginning with The Executrix, three middle-age sisters find a manuscript for a murder mystery in their mother's safe after her death. Mom’s book gives them a whole new view of their mother and their future. Is it fiction . . . or truth? 

Get out the popcorn as the Dushane Sisters Trilogy comes to a scrumptious conclusion with Indigo Legacy. Due out in early 2017.