Spring Forgotten: Rain, Sleet, Snow

7:32

A miserable morning, rain hitting the roof, dark outside, slowly turning to an overcast sky and much colder than the spring like weekend.  Not exactly a morning to excite the senses, to make you want to get up and go.  More like a day to stay inside, listen to NPR,  read a good book, and make some Turkish tea.  When I was teaching,  I paid little attention to the seasons, to nature, to birds, trees, the like, which has become one of the great joys of retirement.  I have time to pay attention to the natural world, to write and read about it as well and it enjoy it.

I really liked today's poem about spring from The Writer's Almanac and another one from the past week, so I thought I would include them in today's post.

Spring Song by Edith Wharton "O primavera! Gioventit dell' anno." The first warm buds that break their covers,   The first young twigs that burst in green, The first blade that the sun discovers,   Starting the loosened earth between. The pale soft sky, so clear and tender,   With little clouds that break and fly; The crocus, earliest pretender   To the low breezes passing by; The chirp and twitter of brown builders,   A couple in a tree, at least; The watchful wisdom of the elders   For callow younglings in the nest; The flush of branches with fair blossoms,   The deepening of the faint green boughs, As leaf by leaf the crown grows fuller   That binds the young Spring's rosy brows; New promise every day of sweetness,   The next bright dawn is sure to bring; Slow breaking into green completeness,   Fresh rapture of the early Spring!

Yesterday was also overcast much of the day though warm, with rain coming late in the day.  No action on the lake, which surprised me because I thought some fishermen might be out in their boats, pulling in the crappies.  There have been quite a few Amish fishing off of bridges, in the streams so something must be running.  I started my week, as usual, with yoga at 9:30, a good class, new, interesting stretches, and lots of laughs, and I am getting to know just about everyone.  I have even been invited to a special introductory class on Friday, combining balance and breathing.  Not sure what that means so I will have to wait and see.  After yoga, I stopped at Ryder's, then went to Home Depot and Wegman's to pick up a few things for the house, for dinner.  Both stores were surprisingly busy, as if spring has brought everyone outside.  

Early Evening Darkening Clouds: 6:32 p.m.

Lunch was the rest of the barley/mushroom soup and a bagel with cream cheese, and Evie went off to workout at the YMCA.  I did little the rest of the afternoon, reading, taking a nap, and watching some TV.  When Evie got home, she put together our dinner, Santa Fe chicken, one of my father's favorites because it had hominy in it, along with chicken, garlic, chiles, green taco sauce and tomatoes, making a great sauce. With rice, it was good dinner, stew like, tasty and filling, enough leftover for a lunch.

After dinner, we started the new season of two TV series we have enjoyed, Nurse Jackie and Mad Men.  Nurse Jackie is back to her old ways, lying to herself and her colleagues, back on opiates, thinking she is strong enough to handle both work and being a drug addict.  Edie Falco, from The Sopranos, plays Jackie, a tough, no nonsense nurse, struggling with drugs, her job, an estranged family, an angry daughter, and a new boy friend.  The new episode of Mad Men was confusing, partly because we had forgotten how the series ended last spring, but also because things have changed so much over the years in some ways, stayed the same in others.  Don is now on hiatus from his job, his wife living in California because of her job, and Peggy, the female protagonist,  is struggling with a new boss.  But both Don and Peggy are also the same, Don lying to himself and to others, unsure of his life, the importance of advertising, the only thing he's really good at, and Peggy continues to crave approval, in her job, but is unhappy with the void of her personal life. Mad Men needs to be watched a couple of times, reviews need to be read, and only then do you begin to get all the subtleties, the allusions to Sharon Tate and the Manson murders in 1969, the appropriateness of the music,  the similarities between this episode and the very first episode from seven years ago, and so on.  

Prairie Spring

by Willa Cather

Evening and the flat land,
Rich and sombre and always silent;
The miles of fresh-plowed soil,
Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;
The growing wheat, the growing weeds,
The toiling horses, the tired men;
The long empty roads,
Sullen fires of sunset, fading,
The eternal, unresponsive sky.
Against all this, Youth,
Flaming like the wild roses,
Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,
Flashing like a star out of the twilight;
Youth with its insupportable sweetness,
Its fierce necessity,
Its sharp desire,
Singing and singing,
Out of the lips of silence,
Out of the earthy dusk