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Early Spring

Spring Beauty, so very early!

Oddly, I find the early spring we are experiencing not only unsettling but a little sad. Of course I adore spring! And winter is my least favorite time of year. But I do live in a land of four seasons and this year we barely had a winter at all.

There are things both natural and unnatural about this early spring that bother me. On the unnatural side, there is, of course, global warming. We are wrecking the natural order of things and that is very sad. All kinds of terrible things are happening across the globe because of what we humans have done and are still doing to this planet that is our home.

Toothwort, too, so early!

On the natural side, there’s time slipping away. Being a woman of a certain age, I am acutely aware of the passage of time. I look out my windows now, in early March, and see lots of green already. Oddly chagrined rather than joyous yesterday, I felt ashamed to actually feel a little sad about it. This is not just a sweet little blip in the middle of winter. I’ve always loved those. No, it’s done, it’s over; and we haven’t put in our dues with ice and snow and freezing toes and fingers yet. Two weeks only of it, I’d say. We’ve paid almost nothing for the rewards of spring.

Wildflowers, bulbs and flowering trees are already doing what they do so well.

Shouldn’t I be reveling in it? Crusty Old Winter’s zoomed away in a rush without even a sly goodbye. Yet this year I’m not yelling, Good riddance!

No. For I have passed another winter on Earth. How many more will I have? So I feel a bit unsettled and not quite as celebratory as usual.

But signs of spring are signs of spring, and color and blue skies and the cheerful little flowers are always lovely and welcome. I just hope they don’t disappear in a rush because summer’s landed too soon! I like FOUR seasons. Four. This is where I live, in Four Seasons Land, which is located on Earth, which we need to somehow protect. Sigh. So many things to fix.

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” ― Anne Bradstreet

“That is one good thing about this world . . . there are always sure to be more springs.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

” . . . always
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves”
― e.e. cummings, Collected Poems

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Memory

I just read the beautifully written book, Someone, by Alice McDermott. As it turns out, I just read it for the second time, although I didn’t realize it until I’d gotten quite far into it.

I loved how it was described on the jacket. A girl growing up Catholic in Brooklyn in the ’40s. Right up my alley. I particularly like books that are set in a different time period from my own. And this one is set in Brooklyn. Perfect!

Pencil factory in Brooklyn

In the story, the neighborhood boys play stickball in the street, a blind veteran of WWI sitting in a chair in front of his stoop. For some reason, the boys turn to this man, Billy Corrigan, to call questionable hits out or in. His calls are gospel, unquestioned. This, of course, jogged my memory. You can read and read but you won’t find a blind stickball referee in more than one book.

As I read on, I felt again like I was in new territory. Perhaps I didn’t get much beyond the stickball scene? Perhaps a book I’d had on hold at the library came available and I’d abandoned Someone for it? Plausible enough. I read on. Seemingly it was all new to me–until oh, three fourths of the way into the book, there’s another strikingly familiar incident concerning the protagonist’s cataract surgery (no spoilers here, I hope). Okay, clearly, I’d read (and loved) the book before. Aiyiyi!

I’m pretty sure I’ve used this photo before, but here it is. Again!

I keep a list of Books Read these days, but I only started it a few years ago. This one isn’t on it. Well, at least I read it more than a few years ago. That helps. And I suppose one could be grateful for the chance to read, again, a lovely book, with fresh eyes, with a brain that is unsullied by this or that from a previous reading. This book was definitely worth a second reading. Or possibly even a third?

Ah well. Now I’m going to add a poem that I am very well aware I have added to a previous post. You needn’t point it out! It’s just too perfect for this one and half of you probably won’t remember having read it before, anyway. 😉

Forgetfulness – Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Winter Solstice

The older I get, the faster time rushes. And there seems to be nothing I can do about it.

Winter Solstice is upon us. In just two days people in the Northern Hemisphere will celebrate the shortest day of the year, the lengthening of the days and the return of spring. And in just two weeks 2022 will end and 2023 will begin. But didn’t we just start wearing sweaters and hard pants? How are we here already? Time is going by too fast for me.

I don’t care if it’s longer days, longer nights, or equal days and nights. I just want my twenty-four hours and I don’t want them to zoom by in a flash, like they seem to be doing, now that I’m an old lady.

I just heard a meditation teacher say that our physical bodies tend to lean forward most of the time, due to our brains’ natural tendency to think about where we need to go, what we need to do next, what’s next on the agenda. And this is why so many of us have trouble sleeping. What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?

Instead, we should be fully participating in what’s happening right now.

So let’s celebrate the seasons, the turn of the calendar page, the natural changes that happen in our world. These things are momentous and magical. Let’s mark those occasions. But let’s also celebrate the morning and the day, our cozy beds, etc., and try not to keen towards spring from now forward. Maybe in that way we can slow the passage of our days.

“A man [or woman] who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.” ― Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you – sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.” ― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

If you’d like to see my new paintings online, go here. Be sure to click on the thumbnails to see the whole picture! If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Turn of the Season

The landscape has changed overnight or

was I simply not seeing, the day before?

Poison ivy is turning red along with

the leaves of a tree whose name I do not know.

Yellow blooms in the fields and across the woods,

tufts and patches suddenly brighten the crowded trees.

Leaves litter the paths now, brown, red, ochre, yellow.

How did this come about so suddenly?

What I once took for normal is no more

and though nature’s face will once again

be fresh and new bursting with Spring’s youth,

my own slides slowly towards old age,

renewals of spirit my only possibility

and only if I’m lucky.

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Cookie and River

These two dogs of hers have aged
it’s plain in Cookie’s face, River’s
movements.  Ourselves too with
lists of minor ailments aches and 
assignations.  Bunions, trigger finger,
bum shoulder, bad knee, failing eyesight,
sketchy memories.  But here we all are
here we go the new adventure the one 
of aging the question being will we 
do it with aplomb or dragging 
our bunioned feet?