Bits & Pieces

This entire blog is about bits and pieces. But some days there are smaller bits that need airing. This is one of those days.

Trees – big, leafy, shade producers. They provide texture and color to our living environment. Beauty. Strength. They add to the sounds of life, too; the whoosh of wind blowing through leaves; the sough of winter winds pressing against bare branches. Trees; lovely partners to our daily routines. Do we notice them? Do we appreciate them? Trees; also pollen producers that make us sneeze and eyes water!

Spring green, creeping into our senses; slowly filling in what was brown, patchy and drab during most of winter, when it wasn’t covered by snow or ice! First a peek of little shoots of fresh growth; then thundershowers with a bit of lightening. The nitrogen from the storms cause bursts of new growth in the lawn; very green, too; much more noticeable now.

Wispy notes of fuzzy green high in the tree tops. Very faint; nearly invisible but still noticeable. The furry presence of greening spring. Sunlight at an angle (axel?) that tells us of season change. These notes around us inform us of hope, of spring.

High gas prices. Fewer car trips even to the store. Errands now planned to stretch the tank. Traffic light between rush hours. Fewer people out and about. Yet, on fresh days of spring there are gawkers on the road. You can tell. The traffic has a different voice then. It’s a special social activity.

Birdsong. At first a little, then a lot. Windows open to catch fresh air. Not a wintry blast but a spring softie. Birds twitter, then bursts of song follow. We notice. It is the sign of new life and winter’s nap. Bright chirrupy notes added to brighten our senses. A lifting of our mood.

Daffodils and Tulips. A sure sign of winter’s end but with an early spring one worries of a late snow and freeze. Would they survive? Of course. How many springs have we witnessed daffodils and tulips pushing up through snow? They are beautiful. They are hardy. They are the sentinels we seek for winter’s end.

Dog walking. In spring it is a different passage. Not for the dog, but for the walker. To smell the air spiced by fresh growth and warming soils. And neighbors talking, out and about. The stirrings awaken to season our lives.

History is long. Our history. Easter reminds of an age of 2000 years. Judaism of an age thousands of years older. And Islam? Buddha? Tao? And others? Ages reaching back 13,000 years since the melting of ice? Tribes and small bands of families seeking survival in that new age? The beginnings of what? Or the continuation of and from what? We are not alone in history but one of many. None the better of the others. All part and parcel of the same long chronicle.

April 10, 2012