Spirit of the Written Word

April 10, 2008

There was that time this afternoon that I was wandering around outside.

A neighbor had been burning brush for me and then left, asking me to check it before I went out, so I meandered down to the spot on the edge of the hayfield by the old stone wall to find some still glowing embers. I went off to find some snow and picked up a still frozen shelf of it with my bare hands and dropped it on the red chars. It sizzled and smoked in a very satisfying way. I picked up some more snow, two handfuls this time, and plopped it on another spot of still smoldering ash.

My fingers were numb as I put them in my pockets and tracked the path of the gray wisps against the blue sky.

I noticed the green beginnings of daffodils by the stone wall, scraggily poking through the leaf covering. The forsythia on the hillside had some small green buds.

The field was still brown and flat. Tracks of some sort scribbled all through it and I wondered what caused that, the snowmelt or some little critter burrowing through.

I walked around the house to the garden, Now that the snow was mostly gone I could see tangles of things and dried stalks, branches thrown down by the winter weather. And leaves, everywhere leaves and untidiness.

Here on the south side the daffodils were budding and I picked some to bring in to see if I could hurry them into bloom.

The pile of wood, not so long ago looking like a snow pile, now was uncovered, as was a spot where my neighbor had been emptying the ashes from his woodstove. Most of the yard was still too wet for walking.

This was it, the face of the earth, just showing itself again. It’s been a hard winter all around. And someday soon I will have to get out the rake and the shovel, the clippers and wheelbarrow and clean up this dirty face.

But for now it was enough to just welcome it back.

April 14, 2008

Happiness is green, pale green, spring green, hazy green, frog green, grass green. Green like the new growth rhododendron leaves. Green like the moss in the cracks of the stone path. Green for pollywog green, lime green, unripe banana green, watermelon skin green.

Happiness is blue, sky blue, ocean blue, turquoise Caribbean sea blue, iris blue, hepatica blue, Victoria salvia blue, old glass bottle blue.

Happiness is sun yellow, daffodil yellow, dandelion yellow, school bus yellow, rain slicker yellow.

Is tulip red, apple red, strawberry, raspberry red, fresh raspberry pie with whipped cream red, cardinal red, maple bud red.

Is poppy orange.

Happiness is brown-haired son about to graduate from college.
Happiness is black-haired daughter soon to turn 21.

Is white paper filling up with blue ink words; grey letters becoming words scrawling across white computer screen.

Happiness is –finally- spring.

April 17, 2008

The cancer community is like springtime to the winter of the disease of cancer. It warms us, brightens our lives and brings us hope.

April 21, 2008

It is a miracle that the daffodils push their way through the thick, sodden mat of over-wintered leaves. Their yellow heads perch on top of green stems while remnants of brown leaves cling like a shawl around their shoulders.

It’s a miracle that spring once again returns to our precious earth, troubled by wars, hunger, homelessness, ravaged by disease and destruction, threatened by climate change.
And still, miraculously, blessedly, buds form on branches, trees burst into white and pink bloom, blossoms litter the forest floor and by the side of the road, ferns poke up their fiddleheads to play the song of spring.

It is an American song, it is an English country dance tune, it is a dance of spring from Italy to Japan to Siberia. The earth turns, the sun draws closer to the northern Hemisphere and life answers its call.

© Pam Roberts

March 13
Today I sat at the round kitchen table by the glass door, looking up from my computer screen to watch a cardinal perch on bare forsythia branches, a welcome spot of red against the otherwise dreary landscape. The snow still stretched out to the woods which are still brown and bare against the gray sky. The phone rang, and I stood to answer. It was my daughter calling with her plans to come home for spring break.

“Omigosh,” I said, interrupting her before she barely got in a “hello.” “There’s a donkey in the yard!” Half hidden by a patch of shrubs, I could see a large brown creature nibbling on a circle of grass that had appeared in the snow.

Even as I said this, I doubted myself. None of our neighbors in this rural area of farms and houses and woods have donkeys. Cows. Big hairy ones that sometimes wander down the road. And dogs who come to visit the compost pile. But a donkey?

“Donkey?” my daughter said. “Did you say ‘dun-key?’”

“Oh, no, no,” I said. “It’s a deer. And there’s another one. And another!”

“But you said ‘dun-‘key’ said my daughter.

“I made a mistake,” I said.

“But it’s not ‘dun-key’”, she said, “it’s ‘dahn-key.’”

“What do you mean?” I said. “It’s not ‘dahn-key, ‘ it’s ‘dun-key.’ How do you call that animal that eats bananas? You don’t say ‘mahn-key’ do you?”

My daughter was not swayed. “It’s ‘dahn-key,’” she said.

“Anyway,” I said, “it’s a dear.”

March 18
I am trying to find some glory in this endlessly gray and windy March weather. Growing up in Pennsylvania, March bore the fragrance of spring in its wind, but here in New England March still wears its winter hat and scarf even when the sun and a patch of blue sky seductively beckon.

“I’ve lived in New England too long,” said Fred, an old New Englander almost 35 year ago when I first moved to western Mass, “to be fooled by March.”

I have become disconnected from the gloriousness of life these tail-end-of-winter days. Walking down our dirt road entails trying to maneuver around sucking pools of mud. Driving it is like running a boat across the wakes of others, an up and down bounding over the rutted roadway that surely is not good for car, road or driver.

On Saturday it snowed, rained, hailed, snowed with a spurt of blue sky in between in the afternoon. I took my son’s dog for a walk during the hailing part and noticed the little white balls on my jacket, in the dog’s fur and on the mud-frozen road. Truly, it was a wondrous weather day, all these mixes and permutations of wetness, and, from what I heard when I described it to friends, it was happening only here in this lump of frozen land here where I live. But I was in no mood to marvel. I walked the dog up to the mailbox and back, barely looking anywhere but down. Down down. Not up at the sky with its clouds that were delivering this multitude of moisture upon us.

My children are both home from college for spring break. You’d think I would find that glorious but all I can think is how great it would be if we were off somewhere warm, having an actual vacation instead of being here in March with the kitties refusing to go out and tearing around the house, leaving balls of fur in every corner of every room and poop poop pooping in the litter box instead of outside like they do when the weather is nice.

Is this what they mean by March madness? Surely there is something glorious in all this. Surely I have learned by now that if I can’t change the circumstances I can at least change my attitude.

Here is a list of glorious March things:
1. The red flowers on the cyclamen plant that fall over all dried out from my forgetting to water them and then raise their heads in forgiveness when I finally remember.
2. My college age son reaching up to hug me as I help him transfer from his wheelchair to the couch.
3. My daughter walking in the door from college and immediately changing into my comfy fleece pants and her dad’s old flannel shirt.
4. Stanley, my son’s yellow Lab service dog with his adorable pink-nosed, brown-eyed puppy face.
5. Sharky the big male cat, sprawled out on the sofa, his long-haired belly up to the ceiling, paws outstretched, reaching up to pat my face when I sit next to him.

March 24
6. Meyer lemons.

I first learned about Meyer lemons, a sweet lemon-orange cross, from my friend Francey who grew up in southern Florida in a rambling house with orange and lemon trees in the backyard.

You never used to be able to see Meyer lemons in stores here in New England, or maybe they were here and I just wasn’t looking. Francey buys them and puts them in a cobalt blue pottery bowl that I made and gave to her years ago.

This weekend I bought some Meyer lemons at Foster’s supermarket and filled a white bowl that Katie made and placed the bowl on the kitchen table next to a bunch of daffodils that had found their way into my shopping cart.

“This is our Easter basket,” I said to my kids. No dying eggs, no jelly beans this year.” Just Meyer lemons with their perfect egg shape and their deep yellow skin with the tiniest blush of green that grabs you by the eyeballs and says yellow! Sun! spring!

Now, that is glorious.

March 27

Soon the forsythia will burst open, the green haze of trees budding will color the hills, the new wet grass will melt and the daffodils will shout out their yellow names. Soon the pansies will show their smiley faces in front of supermarkets. Soon pussy willows will grow their teeny rabbit tail buds on the dark branches.

Soon it will be easier to find something glorious. In fact, when spring comes the task is more how to avoid the glory. How to keep ourselves from spending the warm days parading around outside breathing in the delight of spring.

But right now, when I look out my kitchen window I am not seeing daffodils or crocuses or red tulip blossoms. I am seeing snow, not the freshly fallen snow of Christmas carols and calendar photos, but the tired old snow, old man snow, who has been hanging around this town too long, like a drunk in the gutter who makes you want to avert your eyes,

There are still three foot high piles of dirty old snow at the end of the driveway, for pity’s sake. It is dark at the edges, still icy on top. No one wants a picture of this on their calendar.

March 28

Okay, I give up. Snow is falling fast and furiously. We’re back in winter wonderland; the old man drunken snow has a fresh blanket of fluffy stuff on top of him.

© Pam Roberts