A springtime tale
Ah, spring! After so many months of winter dark and cold, suddenly, without warning, it was here! I drank it in like someone having an illicit affair, writing its name, like a lovesick adolescent, in my figurative notebook, luxuriating in every breath that it stole, its green glory …” This is how I began what was to be this week’s column. Purple prose at its best, or worst.
Today, Sunday and Mother’s Day, I am sitting here, dressed in layers, with the sound of the steam knocking in the pipes, contemplating baking something just to get warm. The only thing that is even close to purple is the blue of my fingers. It is cold! The awful, bone-wearying kind accompanying the chilling rain that has been here all week and the hail and snow that pummeled our yard yesterday.
One of my favorite radio programs, Science Friday, originated from the school of forestry (yes, I know it has a more sophisticated name now, but I can’t remember it) this week. A bunch of academics waxed scientifically, sharing their knowledge about the area and development. They had much to say about the potential of Central New York and about what locals think is important, but the one fly in the ointment, so to speak, was, as one fellow said, the weather. Ira Flatow, the host, who has spent some time in the area, said something about it being a location that is spectacular from May through October, but then….You could hear them all nodding in agreement.
Take a look at the calendar! It is mid-May. Is this part of global warming, which apparently can be blamed for any deviation in weather, or for any weather that we don’t like for that matter? Maybe young people can adapt to this. Maybe they have metabolisms that haven’t slowed to a shaky crawl and this aberration of weather is nothing to them, but I am no longer young, and warmth means a lot to me. Another “maybe” just surfaced … maybe this is why so many retirees head to Florida, the land of hurricanes, bugs big enough for saddles and white shoes and belts year-round.
I have invested a good part of a pension paycheck in annuals and perennials that sit waiting to be transplanted without the time or weather resources to do so. The herbs, the delphiniums, foxgloves, impatiens, hens and chicks, coleus, etc. are facing the edge of extinction unless Mother Nature, or whomever is in charge, reorganizes the forces that cause this chilly drear. My gardens are like my spring, a fantasy yet to be realized. Perhaps I should write the names of my plants in my notebook, conjuring up a fictitious marriage about which I might write…There I am, entertaining my guests among acres of loveliness, sweeping vistas of color and composition, rather than huddled over my computer with a blanket around my shoulders watching it snow in May.
Yet, what can I do about it? It’s kind of like raising kids. There are good and bad times. You roll with the good and rock with the bad. With that in mind, I am going downstairs to sit in my rocker in front of the fireplace and get warm. Hey, it’s the best I can do. The rest of my words are huddled near the radiator, grumbling about working conditions and refusing to be used.
