Thursday, April 21, 2005

pwitty fwowers

Yesterday I was going to start complaining about the weather--something like...

Spring in New Haven is
(a) a time of renewal and rebirth

(b) an intoxicating season of freedom from winter's constraints
(c) April 19th

...because Tuesday was sandwiched between the near-frost earlier this week and yesterday's oppressive heat and humidity (culminating in the first thunder-shower of the season, which left us with an evening full of the smell of wet pavement, a summery smell if there ever was one).

But today was one of those breezy almost-warm days that has everyone walking around outside with these looks of amazement on their faces. There are colours again. After an endless winter in which we all worked very hard at admiring the austere elegance of bare grey branches against a flat grey sky, all of a sudden there are leaves on the trees...and they're green! And the magnoliae are candy-floss pink, and the periwinkles make your eyes ache with their supersaturated greens and blues, and the forsythias make me wonder who detonated the sunshine-mine.

It's all too much, all this exuberant verdure. We could make do with just a little bit of new growth, a little bit of joy. But this is the season when abundant life is poured out upon us, whether we like it or not.

(I do like it, by the way.)

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