Rebirth by Annette Dashofy

Spring is my favorite time of the year. After the cold Pennsylvania winter, complete with long dark nights and never-ending gloomy days, the buds on the trees and the golden daffodils bring a lightness to my heart. The warmth of the sun, the birdsongs, and the return of blue skies give me hope. We’ve survived the darkness and are moving into the light. 

Last spring, of course, was different. My plans to browse the garden centers and home improvement stores—not to mention my plans to travel—were put on hold. The solitude of winter leached into spring and then summer. And then fall. In fact, 2020 felt like one long winter. How many of us have said it was like living in the movie Groundhog Day? Day after day. Week after week.

This year feels different too but for a different reason. Spring 2021 (for me at least) feels brighter. The flowering trees are more beautiful. The green grass is brighter. The sunshine and blue sky, more blissful.

I received my second vaccine (Pfizer, in case you’re wondering) on April 14. This coming Wednesday will be two weeks. I’m seriously considering naming April 28 as my rebirth day. It signifies the start of life anew. Selective hugs. Family gatherings without panic attacks. Plans for weekends away with my husband. 

There’s a lot of talk about a return to normal. I don’t see it as such. I appreciate every little thing so much more than I used to. The smell of my morning coffee and the taste of chocolate because so many of my friends and family who had Covid still can’t access those senses. The feel of a spring breeze on my face because the dear friend I lost to the virus can no longer enjoy that sensation. 

Even the pleasure of browsing the home improvement store, which I haven’t done yet but look forward to after my rebirth day, is something I will no longer take for granted. I’m ever so grateful for online shopping, but let’s be honest. I’m sick of it. 

And while I don’t think I ever really took book festivals and conferences and the chance to meet my readers for granted, I’m absolutely giddy to be making plans for this fall. A library event, a small festival, teaching a workshop with my students in the same room with me…I can’t wait! I’m looking forward to them with an exuberance I haven’t felt since my debut launch. 

What about you? Does this spring feel more springish than usual to you too? What plans if any are you making to celebrate? 

Spring Forward? by Annette Dashofy

Did you remember to change your clocks? More importantly, did you set them ahead? Do we spring forward and fall back? Or spring back and fall forward? Now that I have you questioning whether your clocks are correctly set, let me assure you, we all lost an hour last night.

With smartphones and computers making the shift for us, we’re less likely to find ourselves arriving late for church or Sunday brunch. However, today is one of two days each year when everyone becomes zombies, wandering around in a daze, wondering what time it is. It’s like jetlag without the benefit of having gone anywhere fun.

While I hate the time change hangover, I confess, I’m the only person I know who doesn’t mind the shift in the clock. Yes, I know the argument. In today’s world, the time change is stupid.

The idea of changing the clocks every spring and fall was first proposed in 1784 by good old Benjamin Franklin, although it wasn’t until 1918 that the U.S. passed Daylight Saving Time into law. As a farm gal, I totally “get” it. Back in my hay baling days, we’d be out in the fields working until after 9:00 to get that last wagonload in.

Don’t yell. I also totally “get” that the vast majority of people no longer need that evening daylight anymore. But I grew up celebrating the extra hour of light after supper. It’s one of those signs of spring. Like the groundhog seeing (or not seeing) his shadow, or the first robin, or the appearance of daffodil sprouts. It’s the beginning of the end of my Seasonal Affective Disorder. Instead of eating dinner, washing dishes, and then longing for bedtime, with the later sunset, I’m more inclined to go outside and take a stroll or start cleaning out my flower beds.

I can hear you argue, okay, let’s keep the clocks at DST and not change back to standard time. We’d have more light in the evening all year round.

But just think about those long dark mornings. Do we really want sunrise to be pushed to nearly 9:00 a.m. in December and January? I don’t.

So I stand before you as the lone supporter of springing forward and falling back—even though I too am a zombie. And have a cat whose internal clock has NOT changed.

Dear readers and writer friends, what are your thoughts on the dreaded time change? What are your proposals for fixing it? Or are you like me? Confused but happy to have the extra hour of daylight.

  

Memory Triggers by Nancy Eady

The best writers in any genre use setting to create moods with a few deft sentences.  Their ability to create moods through language is amazing given the many different ways memories are evoked in people.  

Take the example of a blooming pear tree.  February is winding to a close here in the deep South, and Spring is making an unseasonably warm appearance with the trees, shrubs and flowers blooming in swift succession.

The first signs of spring are the daffodils and the forsythia bushes, better known as yellowbells.  Shortly after or while they are blooming, the tulip trees burst out with their pink and white blooms, and then the pear trees.

The flowers of pear trees are white and small compared to the large tulip tree blooms but they still show up because nothing else much is blooming and because they fill up the entire tree.  A pear tree in bloom throws itself into the process.  It doesn’t dally, shilly-shally, or shyly peek forward a bloom at a time.  It personifies the verb “to blossom.”

Pear trees always remind me of my dad-in-law, who passed away in 2001.  This is an odd association in some ways, because he didn’t particularly love spring flowers or pears.  Like most people, he was always glad to see signs that spring was coming, but he didn’t rejoice in the flowers the way I do, the way that makes my teenage daughter look at me sideways and say, “Mom, get a grip.”

So where does the association come from?  For the five years I was in law school (I went part time, three nights a week with two summers off), he and my Mom-in-law fed me supper every night I had class – and they were happy to do so.  They enjoyed having me there.  One day in March in the mid-90’s during supper, Mark’s Dad mentioned to me that he had seen some of the white flowered trees blooming in a field.  He said they were dogwoods, but I was pretty sure it was too early for the dogwoods to have started.  So I drove by the field that afternoon on my way to school, and realized that he was talking about the wild pear trees that had colonized the abandoned field and turned what would otherwise have been an eyesore into an attractive harbinger of spring.

I don’t know what makes that memory stand out, but ever since then, when I see the pear trees in bloom, I not only celebrate the nearness of spring, but also remember fondly a man who meant a great deal to me.

What sights and sounds do you see that trigger memories in you?

Spring! A Pictorial Celebration

by Julie Tollefson

Some people, I understand, love winter. I personally don’t get that. I spend the winter bundled in layers of unattractive clothing or huddled next to the fire. It’s depressing.

So the warmer temperatures of spring make me downright gleeful. And here in Kansas, spring has arrived. Yay! It’s a perfect time for a stroll through the woods.

In the big picture, tender green shoots poke up through last year’s leaf fall, yet the woods don’t look particularly spring-like yet.

But look more closely, and signs of new growth, new beginnings are everywhere.

In redbud tree buds wrapped in water droplets on a rainy morning.

And bursting open a few days later.

In new leaves and flower bud clusters.

In the first dandelion of the season.

 
And bejeweled spider webs as fog lifts.

I’m still waiting for my favorite sign of spring (shown here in a photo from a few years ago):

These miniature irises—I’ve always called them “baby irises”—came from my Great-Grandma Ida’s yard. For three decades, every time I’ve moved, some of them moved with me. They’re always the first flowers to bloom in my yard, eagerly awaited. The leaves made their appearance last week, and the flowers shouldn’t be far behind.

There’s No Place Like Home

Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz closes her eyes, clicks the heels of her red shoes, says, “There’s no place like home,” and magic transports her back to Kansas. Dorothy’s trip to Oz was unplanned; Jan and I took our recent road trip because we wanted to. However, after 8,411.7 miles and forty-seven days, we agree there is no place like home.

The trip was great. We saw places new to us; we visited family and friends; we had lots of outdoor time; we identified at least 115 species of birds. I’d do something similar again—just not for a while.

Once the topography changed and the woods resembled my woods, I felt my soul begin to recharge. Exiting the car to unlock the driveway chain, I stopped and took in a long snootful of our vernal freshness. It will take some time to recover from forty-seven days on the road, but I’m not in a hurry.

No one was up at the lake when we arrived. At roughly N 46.4 degrees of latitude, spring had barely begun. The first thing I had to do was turn on the power (we’re off grid with solar panels and huge batteries) so I could run the well pump. Given the high temperature for the day was only forty-one, starting a fire in the fireplace was next on the list.

The only sounds besides us unpacking the car were wind caressing the evergreen branches and occasional bird songs. At one point the quiet was so intense all I heard was the whoosh of blood flowing through my arteries.

An eagle flew by to check us out. At night the frogs sounded from the vernal pond.

The next day the hummingbirds found their feeders. Chickadees, nuthatches, purple finches and goldfinches discovered proffered sunflower seeds. A mink strolled across an open area near the house. Sharp-shinned hawks called to each other (although unlike last year they don’t have a nest right in front of our house.)

In the coming days we’ll experience our seventh or eighth (and last) spring this year. (We lost count as we crisscrossed the country). Just a few miles south of us, trees are swathed in myriad shades of new-growth green. Here, the buds have just exploded; the leaves will shortly follow and the woods will soon close ranks, closing down long sight into their interiors.

Coming home reminds me how blessed I am. Is there a place that recharges your soul?

~ Jim

I Dream of David Austin Roses

Shakespeare may have said a rose by any other name smells as sweet, but I beg to differ.  He’d never seen a David Austin rose catalog.

Just after the latest snow squall, our faithful mailman launched a hefty David Austin® Handbook of Roses 2015 catalog through the mail slot. What a jolt of color! As gray clouds blotted out the sun and sleet splattered the windows, I turned page after page of summer.

David Austin is a horticulturalist who combines science and art to conjure some of the most beautiful roses in existence. His English roses blend attributes of Old Roses and Modern Hybrid Teas and Floribundas into a rose that embodies charm, fragrance, and romance. Picture the perfect English cottage in the perfect English village. Now picture roses tumbling over the cottage wall or climbing an arbor over the front door. That rose of your imagination is made real by David Austin’s scientific artistry. And not only are the roses beautiful and fragrant (and expensive), they are resistant to disease.

Could one survive the Blackest Thumb in Virginia? My kids tease that I like the blackened petals that are the inevitable result of my gardening, and actually I do think there is an unexpected beauty in even my deadest victims, er, plants.

Scepter'd Isle

But when I dream, I dream of David Austin roses. Which to choose? David Austin roses entice not only with their beauty, but also with their wonderful names.

David Austin roses are essentially English. Their names evoke history and tradition: Thomas a Becket, Maid Marion, Scepter’d Isle. The Lichfield Angel, a creamy white, is inspired by the Lichfield Angel, a limestone sculpture panel from Lichfield Cathedral. The heavenly The Lark Ascending rose is named for the musical work by Ralph Vaughan Willliams.

In the David Austin® Handbook of Roses 2015, literary allusions tumble like visual poetry over a cottage fence: Tess of the d’Urbervilles (with a “lovely Old Rose fragrance”); the soft pink A Shropshire Lad™, named for the work by A. E. Housman; the flamboyant orange, red, and gold Lady of Shalott.

Heathcliff

Jude the Obscure, named for the character in the Thomas Hardy novel of the same name, is a pale, almost shy, yellow. Heathcliff ™is a dangerously deep crimson. The catalog states “few roses are as popular as this one, and few so difficult to breed.”

Brother Cadfael

The mystery fan in me wants the many-petaled Brother Cadfael™, named for Ellis Peters’ medieval detective.

Did you notice the ™? Many of David Austin’s roses are ™. I try not to let this intrusion, like an IRS audit at a tea party, pull me out of my springtime reverie.

Lady Emma Hamilton

David Austin roses may evoke English gentility, but there is a rose named for Horatio Nelson’s lover. The Lady Emma Hamilton rose, an indiscreet, fiery coral color, is, the catalog assures me, perfect for “creating a little excitement in the border.”

So, Writers Who Kill, do you have a black thumb or a green? How do you bring some color into these gray, snowy days?

Spring

Spring

With warmer weather, I’m starting to see the signs of spring.  Tulips are poking the tips of their leaves 

out of the ground.  One of the best things about flowers is that different varieties bloom at different 

times.  All through the spring and summer some blooms appear as others fade and disappear. 

Another sign of spring is the presence of small squirrels.  The young ones that survive learn to run all 

the way across the street as fast as they can.  For the ones who stop in the middle and then dash back to 

where they started, the survival rate is much lower.

Every charity I ever donated to hit me up for money in January or February.  The calls are thinning out.

They usually wait a few months and then call me again, hoping I won’t remember I already gave.  

Some charities have names so similar other charities that it’s hard to tell them apart. Often they combine 

“Children” and “Cancer” along with a few other words.

My bank used to send me credit cards every quarter. I admit it had me fooled for some time.  I finally 

noticed I had too many cards from the same issuer.  Now I cut up any I have not requested. Snick!

Lawn care company signs pop up with the earliest flowers.  There will not be any at all and then, bam! 

They’re more common than dandelions.  The two could be related for all I know.  They probably even 

taste alike, although I cannot verify that personally.

Movie ads that claim, “best movie of the year,” do not appear to be quite as ridiculous as movies that 

premiered in January.  The sequels and prequels of average movies to below average haven’t put in 

their appearance yet. I’m sure they’re on the way.  If you’ve already messed up an idea, why not try for 

a new disaster? ‑ Especially if there is an older treatment that actually worked. Who watches black and 

white movies anyway?

Maybe it’s time to move the snow shovel from next to the front door to the garage. Nah.  That might be 

tempting fate. 

Have you seen any signs where you live? 

PS: I wrote this last night after a day when the temperature had been in the mid 70s.

When I awoke this morning it was snowing.