Sunday, May 25, 2014

Old-Fashioned Spring

We’re having a real old-fashioned spring this year. The kind that starts slowly, high winds whistling in a hint of warmer temperatures, then, just as you are soaking up the sun’s rays, a new wind blows the chill back and temperatures rarely climb to 70o. It’s the kind of spring when the blossoms unfold a little each day unveiling ever-changing color, beginning with the yellow daffodils and forsythia, the purples and pinks of hyacinth and cherry blossoms, followed by the varied colors of tulips, while the trees over-arch with chartreuse blossoms. Now that they have filled out in deep greens, we enjoy shades of violet and purple of the wisteria and lilacs and irises.

It’s the kind of spring when you need a spring coat. When I was young, spring was like this. Just before Easter, our mother took my sister and me shopping for new clothes and, when we grew too fast, a new spring coat to wear to church.  We got to employ that coat throughout April and much of May, then again in the fall.  Seasons behaved themselves in those days. Summer was hot, winter cold and spring and fall took time to transition.

This year I've discovered that I don’t have a spring coat for church because I haven’t needed one for years. I wear an informal jacket as I wonder if I should buy a light coat, or if future springs will revert to the pattern they've taken for many years till now—jumping from a windy March to a hot, don’t-need-a-coat, April. There had not been a single day, or night, below freezing in April for the five years prior to this one.


I've welcomed and enjoyed the slow transition this year. I relished the past autumn too, the trees clothed in brilliant color well into November. It was a joy to be outside. As is this spring. I’ll gladly invest in a transition coat if it will guarantee another old-fashioned fall, followed by another sweetly slow spring. But I fear I’ll be tempting fate, as well as Mother Nature.