It's Spring. Time for the Birds and Bees

It's March 20. This afternoon, it will officially be spring. I can't really say that it has been the worst winter on record here in Ontario, but I am very happy that it is over. It's still pretty cold outside, but at least the sun is shining. I've even seen a robin in my back yard. This morning, I watched a male blackbird strutting around, puffing himself up to impress a nearby female. I guess he mustn't have had the blackbird equivalent of a million dollar bank account and a shiny BMW to entice her, because she shunned him.

Or maybe she just didn't like his politics.

The whole mating thing baffles me, whether among the birds and bees or us humans. Much of it doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess that is part of what makes it exciting. We have a need to explore and to experience the unknown. It sometimes takes us a long time to figure it all out. Then, just when we think we have at least some of the answers, it doesn't matter much any more. We're old.

Walking around in the shopping mall or on the streets of London, I sometimes wonder why some of the old grannies appear to be giving me the once over. Does every woman have a thing for younger men these days? Then I realize that the women are likely younger than I am. I don't know whether to be flattered or depressed.

Spring is the time of love, or so they say. With a son who is taking more of an interest in girls these days, I'm afraid that I have a certain amount of cynicism about matters of the heart. I am trying to prepare him for this very important phase of his life and certainly don't want him to experience any heartache. Neither, though, do I want him to become so cynical and blasé about relationships that the joys of love will be lost on him. In any event, I can't live his life for him. I can only advise him for as long as he still listens to me.

He does still listen to me. I am grateful for that. The only problem is that, in matters of the heart, it isn't the same as talking about investments, politics, history, philosophy or religion or even some of the silly things that Daddy has done in his life. It is intensely personal. And the choices he will make will really matter.

Can something this important really be entrusted to me? Sure. Why not? When he gets to be an adult, he will likely be just as clueless as I am today, regardless of what I will have tried to teach him. He will wonder if and how he will be able to help his own children make the right choices.

I'll be watching. Maybe I'll learn something.