Every day I interact with my students through a screen. I make videos of myself teaching lessons, staring at my own reflection instead of into my students’ eyes. We communicate through stilted, typed comments instead of cheerful calls across the cafeteria and high-fives and the exuberant, cacophonous sounds of woodwinds, brass and percussion. I spend most of my day staring at my laptop, trying to mimic the passion I once had in my physical classroom; trying to draw out the passion from my students. I spend too much of my time in a virtual world that can never be as satisfying as the real world. This is a reality of the current times. This is the season of virtual life. We are living in the virtual world.

And yet.

Yesterday evening I took a walk. It had rained all day, ending in a bright sky just an hour or two before sunset. I slipped on my sneakers and walked around the loop of my street. My headphones soon slid to my shoulders as the grasshoppers and frogs began their nightly orchestra. The birds sang their cheerful songs to each other, conversing over my head. I breathed in the fresh, post-rain air and thought about all I’d noticed in the past few weeks that I’d never had the chance to notice before. I’ve watched spring unfold, one day at a time.

I’ve been looking out the window every morning and seeing change. A little more growth, a larger bud on the trees. A flower that wasn’t there the day before.

I’ve discovered a new favorite color. It’s the particular shade of silver-green moss that hangs on the trees before they become covered in leaves and the trunks are hidden from view.

When we go for drives and walks as a family, we point out the trees that hadn’t been in bloom the last time. Four white trees in front of the Starbucks; a pink one blooming across from the car wash, already dropping its petals.

Bird calls have become distinct from each other, and though I still don’t know which call belongs to which bird beyond a select few, I feel they’ve become my friends. They are my daily music.

I have been spending too much time behind a screen, yes. But I’ve also had the chance to watch the spring unfold from my own home. I’ve spent every morning, noon and evening looking out my windows and walking around my neighborhood. Spring, and the beautiful transition of the season, has become an intimate part of my life. I was always too busy to see it in the past.

I can be grateful for the ability to interact with my students in the virtual world. It’s not perfect. But it allows me to stay at home– at least for now– and live a little bit more in nature’s world, too.