3.10.24

It’s a mess outside.

Spring showed up way too early after a winter that didn’t do much of anything other than give Vermont historic flooding and damaging winds. Walking around the yard yesterday, tulips, daffodils, and crocuses were poking out of the ground, much too eager to bring life and color back to the landscape.

Last night we got heavy, wet snow, followed by rain today. Tonight it’s even more snow, along with gusty winds. That could go well into tomorrow.

“Lousy Smarch weather,” as the bard Homer Simpson once said.

Regardless, I am well and truly in a spring state of mind now, and there’s no album I connect more intensely with the season of renewal and rebirth than Phil Keaggy’s Beyond Nature.

I can’t point to just one track on this 1991 instrumental album as a highlight. It’s a masterpiece from the first chord to the last.

In 1991, heavy metal was my bread and butter. I mean, I listened to and enjoyed plenty of different stuff, but metal was my go-to. But Keaggy — a guitarist’s guitarist — captured me with his intricate finger work and soothing sounds.

The album holds up, too. A couple years ago, I drove down to Maryland in the middle of spring. I was driving down Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania at sunrise, listening to Beyond Nature. I was moved to tears a few times along the way as my surroundings — physical and aural — swept me up into a state of sublime joy.

I feel like maybe I’m rolling into spring a little too soon. But then again, it’s supposed to be almost 50 later this week. So go ahead and give the album a close listen. Then do what I did and listen to it a couple hundred more times.

It’ll be a spring to remember.