Beautiful: EVIDENCE OF LIFE

Went for eggs & sugar, came back with foxgloves!

Antique Rose: Duchesse De Brabant 1857

Down here in Texas, we had scarcely any winter, and now, the week of Valentines Day, we are having spring, which is absolutely my favorite time of year until summer, when the night settles late and the oncoming darkness is laced with the song of crickets and tree frogs. When I had a pond, I also had a bullfrog. I loved him for the bass notes. Then I love fall when the light goes more quickly from the day and somehow the earth seems quieter, more contemplative. And I’m glad for the very short days of winter that keep me inside, tucked up reading and dreaming of something new I want to write.

Kramer's Supreme Camellia Standard

But now I’m in love with spring. All winter, what little there was, I’ve been immersed in a project that is entering its final stages, but every day for the last week or two, spring called; the song renews every year, and every year I respond as if I never heard anything so lovely before, or as if I’m still the person who was raised in more northern climes, standing awestruck at the sight of my mother’s daffodils blooming through the snow. Spring gets into the very air. It’s like a half forgotten melody. The feeling of it bubbles from a center that is both known and unknown, everywhere, and nowhere that’s fixed. It meets every sense with its irresistible invitation that whispers, Come outside. Come and play. Hey, I’m growing out here. Don’t you want to see? Come and smell this rose, that sweet olive. Look at this fat Magnolia bud that I have brought about just for you, or at least it seems that way. And that fat bud is as soft as cotton. The unfolding petals will be like satin and its scent will be something between sugar and lemon. Looking at it, my mouth waters and I am beauty-drunk, saturated with joy. I have an urge to skip.   

So, out I went one day this week and found that all this life was beginning, renewing itself without me, in spite of inattention. The photographs show the proof. Evidence of life abounds in my garden. And very soon, it will abound in bookstores, too! I wonder, when spring is oncoming, what is your first awareness? What is the very first inkling you have? The one that makes you pause and say to yourself: I have to go outside. I'd love for you to leave your answer in a comment....