May the skies be the only space where drama unfolds this spring season, and may the weather stay up there instead of down here. That probably doesn’t make much sense – if it’s happening up there it will eventually fall down here, at least as far as precipitation goes. I’m not a meteorologist, as if it needs noting, so nothing coming out of my mouth should make much sense as far as those things go. I do know a pretty sky when I see it, and even the grayest and most cloudy one has merit; often they are more interesting than a sky of blue.
This post is getting away from me before it even has a chance to establish itself. Some springs are like that too – they tease a day of warmth, followed by three days of frigidness. A cruel bit of bait and switch, and the sky refusing to give up its secrets.
This crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis) has not flowered in years, but I don’t grow it for decorative purposes – it is to keep away the critters who might eat up the single crocus we have left, with its powerfully-pungent odor. For just long enough until the crocus foliage can ripen and start dying back, giving food for next year’s bloom.
Who loves the wind? Who cares that it makes breezes? Who cares what it does Since you broke my heart?
This song by the Velvet Underground sounds more like summer than spring, but we need summer more than spring right now because winter is still creeping into the nights and mornings. Ephemerals are coming up even in the most frightful weather – the enchanting and all-too-fleeting hardy flowers whose delicate appearance is at odds with how tough they need to be this early in the growing season.
Who loves the sun? Who loves the sun? Not everyone Who loves the sun?
Who loves the sun? Who cares that it is shining? Who cares what it does Since you broke my heart? Who loves the sun? Who loves the sun? Not everyone Who loves the sun? Sun Sun Sun
Notoriously difficult to photograph, this little stand of Scilla siberica has faithfully delivered some of the earliest blooms of the season, despite threat of snow (and often several inches of follow-through). One of the steadfast spring ephemerals, it rises, blooms, and falls in relatively quick succession, completing its entire show by the time summer begins in earnest, then disappearing from view and mind until early next spring. There is something exquisitely tender and sweet to such an effort, made perhaps more poignant by its fleeting timeframe. Maybe such beauty simply wasn’t meant to last – maybe that would take away too much of what makes it so beautiful. My mind isn’t wired to accept such things, and for most of my life I’ve sought out only that which might last.
Pure folly. Pure foolishness. Pure fucking idiocy.
And so I endeavor to change my perspective, to shift my way of thinking, at this later stage of life. When beauty is too often the sole balm in a world gone so completely mad we must cherish and embrace it whenever it arises, no matter how quick and fast it may be gone. How could I have entertained the idea of not having such moments at all simply because they wouldn’t last? There is grace in the briefest exchanges of kindness and pleasantry, grace in the merest brushes with beauty and love.
If you’ve seen Druski’s deadly accurate skewering of a certain disingenuous blonde (whose husband was recently murdered, but not by the gun everyone said did the deed – awkward!) then you have witnessed some of the glorious genius of Druski. That alone was enough to earn him this Dazzler of the Day crowning. Check out his Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube pages.
Snow arrived swirling and accumulating the other morning when I woke up – thankfully it had largely melted by the time I drove to work, but the emotional wear and tear of this atmospheric rollercoaster had already worn me down. We are tired of this – winter had its time, this should be spring. Bring on the warmth so we can clean up the yard.
Andy had already opened up the pool, and it’s probably colder than the 47 degrees it was at before the drop in temps. Still, it’s nice to see some blue, even if it’s not in the sky.
Shades of pink and lilac swirl in layers of tulle and lace, the sheer refinery playing beautiful tricks on the eyes. A cloud of color billows about and behind – maybe it’s the dress, maybe it’s the perfume, maybe it’s the illusion of pink. A portal to the past reveals itself in every bubble – it’s the bubble of self-awareness, the bubble of knowledge, the bubble of realizing that maybe you’ve been wrong.
Ah, but the truth has a way of seeping on in Beneath the surface and sheen And blind as you try to be Eventually, it’s hard to unsee what you’ve seen
Galinda’s transformation in the ‘Wicked’ movies is shrouded outwardly in pink fabulosity, shimmering with ethereal beauty and sparkling wands, but doesn’t fully take hold until she dons a black cape, muddy boots, and rides out in the night to help her friend. By then it’s too late, and sometimes life is about accepting the way that your choices have played out, making the best of circumstances that were never quite what you wanted or expected. It’s never too late to change, to become something better than you are today, even if nothing else changes. You can be different. You can be better.
And so that beautiful girl With a beautiful life Has a question that haunts her som?how If she comes down from the sky Giv?s the real world a try Who in the world is she now?
Does it feel a little frivolous in a world on the seeming edge of nuclear war? Perhaps, but think of the burnt bagel theory: if the worst thing in your day is that your bagel was a little burned, that can feel catastrophic. Not saying it’s right, just saying that comparison works in myriad ways. Usually it’s the thief of joy; sometimes it can be helpful. We want so badly to make sense and order of the world, especially when it makes us feel yucky, or we feel like we have failed. Revelations and transformations are difficult, especially when they start to change lifelong archetypes and beliefs.
And though so much of her wishes that she could float on And the beautiful lies never stop For the girl in the bubble, the pink shiny bubble It’s time for her bubble to pop
For the popular girl, high in the bubble Isn’t it high time for her bubble to pop?
Music lends itself to spring moments, and this song touches on beauty, one of the themes of this lilac season. Here is our growing, and increasingly eclectic, playlist:
Andy mentioned the angel’s trumpet in passing a little while ago, and maybe this is the year we bring them back – the first year is really just the planning – their show usually happens after overwintering for a year or two, when they can develop roots and trunks and soar like small trees, dangling their sweetly-lemon-scented blooms in the nights of summer.
Two other arms around you now,
Some other love has found you now!
But when love forgets to smile,
My darling, once in a while,
Remember April and lilacs in the rain!
For now, the lilacs will have to do, and they stand on their own perfume-wise. I’ve been afraid to examine our lilac trees to see how many buds might be present – there’s nothing other to be done whether they are full or scant, and lately I’ve been focusing on what is real, what is present, what is at hand – a method of mindfulness that fills the head-space when overthinking runs the risk of overtaking.
The previous sentence dangles there without a proper ending. It began in such busy fashion and then just petered out. Playing with words is merely an excuse for disguising something deeper, something more vulnerable and telling. Lilacs evoke such sentiments – they have me spilling secrets of the heart’s desires, and the heart’s hurts. That’s why this post would have never stood up to the unforgiving light of day; there wouldn’t be enough shadow to shield…
Signifier of spring, the robin is a perennial totem of hope. One usually builds a nest near the house, sometimes in a most inconvenient place that occasionally needs to be taken down before it goes up (if they’re too close to a door or entryway, they would not allow us by once the eggs get laid). The last few years we’ve reached a reasonable compromise – they’ve taken to the Wolf’s eye dogwood tree, the climbing hydrangea’s arbor, or somewhere in the Thuja wall. We are still less of a threat than the hawks or crows, which have heartbreakingly raided nests in the past.
The circle of life often feels most perilous in the spring, when everything is still tender and raw.
A record of a lesser-known musical titled ‘The Most Happy Fella’ by Frank Loesser peeked out at me from a bin at a downtown Albany thrift store. A lovely-enough introduction to an operatic excursion, the few song excerpts I found online illuminated why it never made much of a lasting splash, but there is beauty in this song, and the atmosphere provided by the Percy Faith treatment fits in well with this beautiful lilac spring we’ve conjured to gain some traction out of this recent hazy winter.
Without words, the music creates atmosphere over distinctive scenes or plot points – evoking a feeling, a sense of something, a hint of emotion – and the rest you can fill in from your own earned experience. What does it sound like? Where does it place you? It is possible to believe you’ve had an experience just by hearing certain songs, even if you’ve never quite had it. Music does that, even in the most trifling song, if you let it, if you give it the space to live.
When I look back at my life, it’s mostly been just a bunch of damage control. That was going to be a quick ‘Tiny Threads‘ entry, but it’s such a profoundly humorous statement it deserves its own blog post. So here we are, and here it is. Making something out of nothing – words to paper, paper to laptop, laptop to blog, blog to you. A small chain of events that brings me from the cafe in which this is being written to whatever device you find yourself skimming and soon skipping due to this unimpressive tedium.
It’s what I have to so often do when my mouth runs away with too much truth, when my words cut a little too deeply, when the good-natured ribbing hits differently depending on the recipient’s day.
