Trees do it. Flowers do it. Even exasperating toddlers do it. But at this time of year it’s hard not to be thrilled by the sheer verticality of the green and growing world.
The climbing rose is a case in point. It grows up and out. Or over and out, depending upon how you look at it. And you’ll have to take my word for it, because this picture doesn’t capture it.
The point is, the branches grow out so the roses can grow up. Such is the power of the sun, of the life force.
Here we are at May Day — sodden, squishy, water-logged. The petals of our dogwood, our Kwanzan cherries, scattered and beaten to the ground. Our airy forget-me-nots hardly the azure clouds they were three days ago. The azaleas hesitant, unwilling to bloom.
After this winter, I’d hoped for a knock-’em-dead spring. Something to warm and delight us. But nature doesn’t operate like that, I tell myself. Rain pelts and puddles — or fails to fall at all. Winds funnel and destroy. Sometimes, snow even falls in spring.
The balance we seek, the recompense, is not in the natural world. If it is to be, we must supply it.
I heard them last night, the tiny, vocal frogs we know as spring peepers. Their chorus is a sure sign of spring.
They’re late this year, the little guys. Waiting for warmth, I imagine. We all are.
But who among us makes such music of our contentment?
If I read about peepers (and I think I did long ago) I would learn that their sounds are mating calls — not some existential expression of delight.
Still, after a long winter, in the just-dark of a warm spring evening, existential delight is what I hear.
Is it any wonder that shy spring flowers are timid after this winter? Even as late as Sunday they were being pelted with snow, sleet and freezing rain.
Somehow — the angle of the light, the lengthening days — the world is still preparing itself for the new season. There’s that promising pink haze at the top of the tall trees, the way buds look 80 feet away. And there are green shoots and flowers pushing up all over town. Rumor even has it that the cherry blossoms are primping for their big show.
But here on the shady side of morning, the daffodils are looking less than sure of themselves. Yesterday I bent low, snapped a few shots, and gave them a pep talk. “Come on, guys. You can do it!”
They had nothing to say for themselves; only hung their heads a little lower. But I have confidence in them. Sixty-degree temperatures are forecast again for today. It’s only a matter of time …
On Saturday I spotted signs of spring, snowdrops and green shoots, that pinkish haze that appears in the tree tops, proof the old oaks are coming to life.
It struck me as I strolled that I might be imagining the greening branches, the swollen buds, that maybe they were like the puddles of water that appear on a hot summer tarmac.
Because today, St. Patty’s Day, I’m not so sure. It looks like a foot of snow outside. It’s the whiting of the green. And for some reason, I welcome it.
It’s such a quiet, dutiful dousing, wet and heavy, clinging to each twig and bough. It stills me — and fills me with wonder, that such meteorlogical marvels can exist this far into the greening season.
Spring will come soon, no way it cannot. The shoots and buds are biding their time. But for now, on this day devoted to green, we have a different kind of beauty. It’s white.
A free hour, from 6-7 last evening, and the trail beckoned. The sun was low in the sky and the evening was soft and warm. Cyclists whizzed by me and my legs felt heavy and tired, so I kept to the right and warmed up slowly.
Ten minutes in and I was flying. Well, not really. But it felt that way. It’s been such a long, cold winter. And to be dressed only in one layer, moving at my own pace down a path in the suburbs, seemed perfection to me then.
Maybe it was runner’s high or maybe it was spring fever — and it certainly had something to do with daylight savings time. But whatever it was, I was not alone.
Everyone I saw — from the ferociously helmeted bikers to the boxy guy padding along in thin sandals — seemed to feel the same way.
As I write, the temperature hovers above freezing. 35 degrees on May 14!
Cold spring days are the smell of cut grass in nippy air. They are the crisp edge of morning when dawn is brisk as well as bright. They are lingering dogwood, preserved by the chill.
The seasons bump up against each other, one ready to begin and the other not ready to leave.
I know how this story ends.
The question is when.
I’m two days late on this one, but the story still needs telling. What we have here is perfection.
The azaleas are out and the dogwood still in bloom. The clematis winds its way around the lamppost. Tulips nod valiantly by the door. Forget-me-nots spread a blue cloud in the garden.
The front door is open and light pours in. May is like that. Early in the month it’s pure spring. But it opens the door to summer.
Not May Day. But a May day.
