One of my biggest complaints about Minnesota is the lack of flowering trees. Living there for 4 years was rough for me. Not only is winter really, really, really long, but spring isn't even that pretty. It's mostly muddy from all the melting snow, and then just when it's getting warm and you're wearing skirts and flip flops it will snow AGAIN, and there are no dogwoods or cherry blossoms, and then the next thing you know, it's summer. I'm not OK with that.
Walking home from work today I was in a pretty bad mood. As I crossed over 83, I looked up, and a tree by the side of the sidewalk had little buds on it. I think they were flower buds, they were about the size of a large olive and were fuzzy. I pulled one off a low-hanging branch and rubbed it between my fingers the rest of the walk home.
It made me feel like I was holding a tangible representation of a promise. "Spring is coming!" it said. "And there will be flowers!" No winter lasts forever, and even things that may seem dead for months can produce fruit.
It isn't that I'm unhappy here, per se, and it's not that I'm counting down the days until I leave (although I am counting down the days until I go to Minnesota to visit friends- 27 left!). I just feel stuck in winter, in a ground too frozen to til and temperatures that kill seedlings. I long for a warm spring breeze and FLOWERS and the scent of honeysuckle. Today I was reminded that they're on their way, and that party of the beauty is in the patient waiting.
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
1 comment:
First: where's that quote from? I love it.
Second: I love you and miss you. This should be number 1, but I didn't want to forget about the quote, and I knew I wouldn't forget that I miss you
Third: I hate you. Not really, but I can't even imagine flowers yet. February's the windy month. So what were December and January? I won't see green until April.
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