Posted tagged ‘snowdrops’

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“I love the feeling of the fresh air on my face and the wind blowing through my hair.”

March 9, 2015

The sun is shining and today’s temperature will be in the high 30’s. All week the daytime will be warm, even hitting the high 40’s by Wednesday. All I can hear is dripping, and it almost sounds like rain. The icicles are melting. Most are already gone. The roof has very little snow left. I can see some of the road in front of my house. The ice path on my walk melts a little every day and is getting narrower, smaller. It freezes again at night, but there is less of it in the morning. The piles of snow on the deck are shrinking. That sure as heck sounds like the stirrings of spring to me.

My hyacinth has bloomed. Its flowers are white. It reminds me that under the snow in the front garden are bulbs just waiting to pop their green shoots above the ground. I love it once they finally appear. I check their progress every morning on my way back from getting the papers. I am a bit impatient waiting for the shoots to grow taller and for the first glimpses of buds. I watch as those buds grow higher than the shoots and begin to show the first hints of color. Usually the dainty snowdrops bloom first followed by the dafs. The irises and hyacinths take a bit longer.

Every season has its own smells. In spring the air is fresh and filled with hints of grass and flowers. I love the first warm, spring day when I can open my windows to clear the house of winter’s stuffiness, but they stay open for only a while. By late afternoon, the air is chilly, and it’s time to shut the windows until the next warm day.

Today is an empty dance card.

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“…I don’t just wish you rain, Beloved – I wish you the beauty of storms…”

March 23, 2014

More croci and snowdrops have bloomed in the front garden which gets the first sun in the morning. The purple crocus is the newest one. It sits among the many yellow croci. More snowdrops have bloomed beside the steps. Their white flowers are brilliant against the dark of last year’s mulch. Every morning the garden seems to have a new flower, a surprise for me.

A light grey cloudy sky hides the sun. When I look out the den window, the bare branches look stark. The sun usually softens the look of them. No buds have appeared yet, not even on my forsythia always the first to bloom.

When I was a really little kid, I didn’t notice the subtleties of the world around me. I noticed the changing leaves in fall, the trees full of green shading the sidewalk on my way to school and the snow and the rain. I didn’t notice the smell of summer rain or the strange color of the sky before a snow storm until I was a little older. I always wondered how I could have missed them, the wonderful pieces of the changing weather.

I remember how the sky would start to darken and the darkness would deepen and spread. I knew a storm was coming, a huge storm, and I got to watch it from the very beginning. My heart would beat a little faster as the clouds, dark, threatening and scary, moved above me. Sometimes I could even see the rain coming at me, and I’d run into the house. I’d sit by the window and watch it all unfold in front of me. The drops were heavy and there were so many the rain ran like a river in the gutters along the street. The houses near mine became indistinct, hidden by the rain.

I stayed and watched. Sometimes the rain stopped slowly small drop by small drop. Other times it just stopped, finished in its fury.

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“It was Sunday morning, and old people passed me like sad grey waves on their way to church.”

March 16, 2014

This morning I filled the four sunflower feeders, and the spawn came back, the red one which jumps from the rail to the feeder over and over again. I chased it away, but it will be back. It always is. I thought about ways to encourage the spawn to pack its little bags and move elsewhere. I came up with a slingshot flinging paperclips, a pea shooter, a wire covering the food slots, electrifying the rail from where it jumps and a wee guillotine though I did reject that last one but only after giving it some consideration. I’m thinking the wire might be the best choice only because my aim with the slingshot and pea shooter mightn’t be up to the task.

The day is a pretty one. I found some more croci in the garden. Three of them are open and basking in the sun. I also saw a snowdrop, a lovely and delicate flower, by the stairs. The hyacinths are getting taller, and I can see their buds. It may only be 34˚ but it feels like spring to me. Flowers carry hope about them.

The mornings are noisier now. The birds have started greeting the day. Their songs are most welcome sounds.

In the church I attended in my hometown, there was a tiny pew in the back. It was the last one in the church and held only two people. I used to wonder why it was there and eventually decided they ran out of space but wanted balance at the end of the rows instead of a weird bare spot. I loved that pew and thought of it as the pew of the impious. I always sat, stood or knelt when everyone else did, but I never paid attention. Sometimes I sneaked in a book and read the latest adventures of Trixie Beldon. I tried to look saintly and reverent with my head bowed, and because all the people were in front of me and couldn’t see what I was reading, I think I pulled it off. When the ushers came by with their baskets, the book was hidden. I dropped my dime in the basket, waited for the usher to move along and then went back to my book. Mass went quickly when I was otherwise preoccupied so it was often a surprise when the priest said, “The Mass is ended go with God.” I took him at his word and scooted out the door and down the stairs. I was probably close to halfway home before the church had even emptied. I never minded going to mass when I had a good book to keep me company.

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“Come, gentle Spring! Ethereal Mildness! Come.”

February 25, 2013

Today I woke up nearer afternoon than morning. It had been a late night. I watched the Oscars at my friends’ house then came home, checked e-mail and watched a little TV. Before I realized it, the time had slipped away and it was after 3.

Yesterday it poured all day, but last night, as I was going home, the rain had turned to heavy snow and it was slushy and slippery, but right now the day is lovely with blue skies, lots of sun and a bit of warmth. I have feeders to fill, dog food to buy and laundry to do. That’s my agenda for the day. I hope I can manage.

I can see the white flowers of the drooping snowdrops in my garden. They don’t mind snow or cold. They are spring’s first miracle. Other green shoots are just appearing through the soil, but in one part of the front garden, the dafs have grown high. Perhaps yellow buds will be next.

Winter is beginning to weight me down. I am tired of cold and snow. I don’t remember ever before being so anxious for spring. Usually I just hibernate with good books, and I’m fine with that and patient with the weather. Maybe all the rain we’ve had, those days without heat or the heavy snowstorms have pushed me to ache for spring. I want one day when the deck is the perfect spot to be.

I don’t like vacations centered on the beach, even when I’m sick of winter. I want to see things, to eat new food and to hear a language not my own. I like old places, even ancient places. The fun of a new city is wandering and getting lost and finding wonders on the way. Sometimes I take all rights or all lefts. I like to sit in the sun at a table at a sidewalk cafe and drink coffee and watch the world go by. When I shop, I look for the unusual. I take a lot of pictures. I am partial to doors and windows. I always think of the generations of people who looked through those same windows and I wonder what they saw. I walk so much I am exhausted and always fall asleep early.

Today I’ll have no adventures, but I do have some sun and some warmth. I guess that will have to do.

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