The definition of spring is when the sun's plane crosses south of the equator allowing a precise minute to be charted for the equinox, but spring itself seems more a state of mind. Since no two minds are alike, then everyone should be allowed to choose their own definition of when spring arrives. I choose today.

Ballard looked especially beautiful, as though a watercolorist or home stager was one step ahead of me adding touches designed to increase curb appeal. How can there be so many varying shades of pink in cherry blossoms? There were rows of primroses, newly planted in just dug dirt. Magnolia buds fuzzy and ready to burst open like milkweed pods. The red twig dogwoods were flaming brighter than any other day and tiny nubs were at the end of every branch.

Does spring begin on the first day when our world looks beautiful to us again after dark months? Does spring begin on the first day there's enough late afternoon sun to reflect on the storefront windows or cast shadows that are perfect silhouettes? Is it when the Golden Garden turtles sun themselves on logs in the pond for three days in a row? When Jimmy unlocks the doors on produce at Top Banana? Or is it when there's a line of cars waiting for the self-service Brown Bear car wash on Leary?

Dogs and their owners were moving tentatively farther from home, sniffing at the crocus and forsythia instead of rushing home. Children were visible inside the strollers instead of completely swaddled and new babies were snuggled on the outside of their mother or father, rather than inside. I saw a baby so new that she hadn't even uncurled herself yet, being passed from hand to hand like an overfilled bowl of something precious.

Since today was my first day of spring I smiled at everyone and anything, even juggling eight library books in my arms. I smiled at the delivered basket of plants still attached to a sagging blue balloon that heralded another new arrival. I smiled at the policeman hired to stand in the middle lane of Northwest 24th while trucks enter and leave the QFC site with dredged earth.

Growing up in a small town it was tradition for the first person to find a trailing arbutus in bloom to hightail to the post office where the flower was displayed as a way of heralding the arrival of spring. A friend's mother would gather pussy willows and then shape them into miniature dioramas in which the soft buds became scenes of domestic bunnies. Those were rites of spring. The first daffodil, the trillium, the first day to wear shorts; everyone has a different definition of when their spring is sprung.

On my first day of spring in Ballard the long-time Market Street Pharmacy dropped its brown paper wrappings and re-opened its doors as Monkey Bridge Vietnamese. The Wine Bar on 24th continued its transformation into another venture, awning lifted off of the building and loaded into the back of a truck. The "Uncle Sam" at Liberty Tax Services on 15th was alternating between the east and west side of the crosswalk while "Lady Liberty" warmed up inside, pant legs protruding below his green drape. There was an apologetic note on the Antique Shop to the north; they're moving to Snohomish. Broken crutches were leaning against a telephone pole and one block had not one but two motorboats parked in driveways, just beside the front door walk. Is that spring in Ballard - boats in the driveway, long-billed flickers rapping on the chimneys, azaleas already in bloom?

Spring can be the first day when you would rather wander than go home, when each block seems new, the grass greener than you can ever remember. The turning point might be trilliums in the Illinois woods or the turtles at Golden Gardens. Native Americans had different names across the regions for the full moon occurring near the equinox - the Full Worm Moon in recognition of the earthworm casings that draw the robins and the Full Crow Moon for when crows begin to caw in earnest. On my block there are robins, flickers and crows, all tangling to be the harbinger of spring. A convertible has come out of the garage and training wheels off the five-year olds' bicycle.

There's no one tradition in Ballard. There will be no small town weekly photograph of a little girl holding the first trailing arbutus - but the neighbors have delivered their annual boughs of magnolia to doorsteps. Children holding baskets will be flocking to the community center to hunt plastic eggs in plain sight. The tulips at Ballard Market have given way to primroses; the Sunday Farmer's Market on Ballard Avenue is stretching out again.

Forget the astronomical precision; spring in Ballard might be the first day that you shed your winter coat or your winter long inability to make eye contact while passing a stranger on Market Street. It might be the opening day for new businesses lining up like bassinets in the hospital nursery while the actual newborn begins to uncurl a tiny bit more, straightening one folded leg, and then the other.

That's the day I choose.

Peggy can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard.