Spring is in the Air

This time last year I knew that we were heading into spring, but even though I looked for familiar signs, I never really saw spring arrive. Summer was cooler than I expected and in general, the first year felt pretty season-less.

September 1st marks the official start of spring and this year I recognize the signs all around me. In my garden the cool weather vegetables are growing, if not thriving. Hyacinth, tulips, and daffodils are raising their heads. The air is laden with the heady fragrance of jasmine and though I don't know their names, other subtropical spring blooming trees and flowers are bursting forth.

 

In my neighbor's backyard a deciduous tree grows over our fence. It was already leafed out when we moved to this house last October and dropped lovely golden leaves into our backyard last autumn. This morning I gazed out my kitchen window at the neon green shoots covering the branches. Spring is coming soon.

For me, the most poignant marker in the coming of spring is the early morning light, accompanied by bird song and balmy temperatures. I begin to wake earlier in springtime and my favorite thing is to be out in the garden inspecting every new thing, before the heat of the day. I could hardly feel the entrance to spring last year, but this year I hear the birds singing, and the garden is calling me out.

All this twitterpating is taking me back to memories that pre-date marriage and children. I've been thinking about my bedroom in the house we lived in when I was in high school. I lived in a wonderful room under the eaves at the top of the house. I slept in the big iron bed that The Captain and I now share, often with my large dog on top of my legs. I'd leave the windows open all night and wake up to nesting bird songs and the sound of the fountain in the goldfish pond I'd build in the backyard.  In those years I worked first as a landscaper and then in a flower shop, so my days were full of connection to nature.

Feeling the spring come here helps me feel more grounded. I reminisce over things I left behind, but I also look forward to what I now know is just around the corner here: jacarandas blooming, huge bowls of luscious summer stone-fruit,  days spent on the beach, lying in the warm sand, Christmas.

Every day I feel less lost and more excited.

Comments

[caro.d]

It is truly amazing to me that we have different seasons. So wonderfully cool! Just as I can see signs of fall coming (aside from the rabid shoppers stocking up on back to school items), greens turning a bit more yellow, you are experiencing a rebirth of flowers, gardens and song birds. There is most certainly resurrection all around, whether I am there to see it or not!

[wendy]

That's exciting. I'm so glad you are settling in, getting to know the changes and have that sense of what there is to look forward to. We were in the store looking at Christmas ornaments (WHAT?!), and looking at the snowmen, was wondering what southern hemispheric peculiarities there were.