Spring

I've decided that dogwoods are my favorite flower, at least for the time being. I don't remember ever particularly noticing them before, but this year I see them everywhere, blooming all over Portland, with their beautifully mottled pink and white petals. So incredible.

I cleaned our bedroom today. Among piles of clothing, I found two, count 'em two, towels, and I filled the whole canister of our Dyson vacuum with dust and cat hair from the carpet. Yuck. There's something to be said for spring cleaning, or maybe just cleaning more often than we do. Now I'm lying in bed, actually enjoying rather than loathing this room, and the smell of  new leaf shoots and blooming cherry trees and damp April soil is coming in through the window I opened to air everything out, once and for all. It really is a hopeful season, deliciously and subtly so, the way that fall is deliciously and subtly melancholy.

Comments

[lisa]

I know what you mean about dogwoods. I'm eagerly awaiting my dogwood blooms. They're still a couple of weeks away. I love dogwood in the winter too. It's one of the plants that just keeps on giving. In the winter the red branches poke out of the snow piles and add color to our landscape. Spring has come as such a relief this year. We had such a harsh winter. Harsh in terms of the weather and harsh in terms of the emotional toll it took. But spring arrives and reminds us of the constancy of the cycles of life. Today as I write this note I look out on the pond and see all of the waterfowl that have returned. The cormorants are out there looking like periscopes crusing the pond. Every-once-in-awhile they will take a deep dive for something on the bottom of the pond and emerge, bobbing-up several feet from where they took their dive, to continue crusing. I spotted the heron the other day. There are lots of geese and ducks. Hopefully we will soon see parades of mama's with their goslings and ducklings following behind. It's so reassuring.

Love, Lisa