Every Year is More Beautiful

Spring has shown her sweet side in the past two days. Sun mixed with cloud, no wind to speak of, and gentle warmth that pours like honey onto my head.

We walk, late afternoon or early evening, through house-lined streets where tulips and daffodils nod their pretty heads and airy riots of pink cover bare branches. 

Along the path through the woods creamy fawn lilies (Erythronium) shine like stars. Only by crouching low do we see the details of stamens and pistils. She's a shy flower that charms and entices the passerby to take a closer look. 

Miner's Lettuce (Montia Perfoliata) grows in these woods, too. An edible plant, its crunchy sweet leaves and stems make a fine salad. I pick just one round leaf from a plant growing on a steep bank, tucked into a tree stump where I know a dog wouldn't have graced with his presence. 

We stop to admire the magnificence of a magnolia tree in bloom for a few moments. 

"Everything is blooming most recklessly, if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of night," wrote Rainer Maria Rilke. Rather than shrieking, I rather think it would be music, a harmony of richness, tentative at first, then swelling into fullness. 

Returning home, I notice the rhododendron in the front garden that bloomed not at all last year is getting ready to put on a show.

How quickly the days and weeks and months pass. Term three is ended; one more to go. I love my job and interacting with students, but I'm pulled homewards, too. When I arrive home there's never enough time or energy to do the things I'd like to do. I know it's a matter of adjusting expectations, but I want it all.

John Burroughs wrote "I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see." I'd like to teach for two more years and then retire. Again. 

In my garden the blueberries are forming flowers, each one, if pollinated, and watered, will grow into a round fat berry that will roll into my bucket with a little tug of my fingers.

A little patch, very small, of violets has seeded itself under a rosebush. I hope it spreads a little more each year. 

I feel a little blue just now, for no reason in particular. I've been thinking about people I love who are hurting, and of the uncertainty of life. I find some comfort in Tolkien's words, 

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater." 

Rosemary in bloom in the late afternoon sunshine. 

I've always found the book of Psalms comforting. David wrote so honestly about his feelings. He whined, complained, grouched, despaired, and then turned towards his God. "All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you" he writes. How comforting to be known.  

What a rambling post this has turned out to be. It's like a rather aimless walk. I'll close here with a question for you. When blue days come, what do you do?