It is with great pleasure that I am able to say Spring Is Here In NEO. Rick takes full responsibility for the brief return to Winter a while back, caused by him putting all the snow shovels away despite my warnings. (It was that night that the snow fell, too!) Yesterday, Easter, was full of sunshine, warm breeze, birdsong, and lots of trash talk during the front-yard wiffle ball and kickball games at my sister Patti's house. All eleventy thousand of us were there, and St. Patsy was in her glory.On Saturday Rick and I had spent part of that Springy day evaluating the yard. My chives are up, along with my French tarragon, spicy oregano, and sage. The thyme, which had sprawled out into half of the plot, had not fared as well. I pulled it all up but a softball-sized clump which looked sickly and sad. I guess we'll see what happens. Both pond fish, Frigidaire-Ziploc and Tina, had managed to survive the winter and were sluggishly moving about in the cold, brackish water. "I know just how you feel," I told them.
It makes me feel silly and a little ashamed to say that this was a tough winter for me. After all, what did I have to do but wake up, eventually get dressed, and putter around, occasionally running some errands? Did I have to go to work every single day, brave the cold, shovel the snow, wrangle little kids to daycare, worry about anything, really? No. Honestly, I didn't. I had the life of A Kept Woman, by and large, and I could stay at home in the warmth and drink warm things and keep things tidy and cuddle the cats and read and wait for Rick to come home. How tough is that?
But as soon as Spring began its slow approach, I felt restless. It was almost instinctive, inborn, a genetic urge that made me feel a slight irritation. A sort of undercurrent, a thrumming, started in my nerves. I felt trapped and cornered. I wanted to drive, get away, go away, see something, do something. I needed to travel, to jaunt away for a bit. You know how if you have an old plant that starts doing poorly for no reason, you give the bottom of the pot a good knock and it shakes it up a bit, and it snaps to? That's what a road trip can do for me. It gets me snapped out of my post-winter funk.
So, I'm headed out tomorrow to see a friend in Maryland. It has been a million years since we've spent time together, but I have a feeling that we'll be able to pick up right where we left off. That's the great thing about friendships. Like herbs in a garden, the strongest ones can lie fallow under the worst conditions, but be vibrant and alive when the sun shines warmly again.
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I love that you too have to GO! My husband says he can tell when I am getting itchy to go. When he retires we will do a lot of going.
ReplyDeleteHow true.
ReplyDeleteAh! Tis the winter of your discontent, made glorious by herb gardens, Frigidaire-Ziploc, and... friendships that are never too far down the road. Have a wonderful trip as you leave your post-winter funk in the rear view mirror! :-D
ReplyDeleteOooh, a road trip sounds fantastic! I don't know where you're going in MD, but I hope the dogwoods are still doing their thing when you get there. I hear you about winter being tough, too. Every winter was tough for me until we moved to Tempe (AZ) and I learned what it was like to spend my winters outdoors in the sunshine. You pay for it in the summer, of course, but it's a price I was always happy to pay. Hope you have a great trip!
ReplyDeleteOh it WAS a rough winter - it doesn't matter whether or not you had to go out in it, you still had to look at it. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteHope you're having a fabulous time!
I'm glad you didn't have to go out into the winter too much, but it does sound like it would be depressing. I remember in Alaska and Philadelphia, how welcome springtime was. SUCH a relief.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your time in MD! I've only driven through a few times, never stopped anywhere much, but I do love the skinny little trees, so different from the California trees we have. I'm sure MD has more than skinny little trees (the ones in The Blair Witch Project remind me of MD), but that's what I remember from the freeway on our way to DC.
j@jj--LOL. Come to think of it, MD does have a lot of skinny trees. I wonder why that is. MD is several weeks ahead of NEO in springtime, so I was wallowing in all the blossoms and dogwoods and little leaves. So lovely.
ReplyDeleteBug--It is true that winter is lousy when you live it. I did have a wonderful time catching up with good friends. There was no plan to do anything other than that, and that's what we did. I simply got an advance look at Spring and reconnected with the past.
MsCaroline--The dogwoods were starting to do their thing: becoming lacy glimpses in among the woods, acting like terraces of blossoms in among the branches of trees that hadn't even begun to fully leaf yet. Every day was sunshiny and kind enough to wait until nightfall for rain.
Ortizzle--Shakespeare could not have said it better. I was able to recharge and enjoy some Spring, some great time with friends, and the new companionship of a particularly charming and energetic Boston terrier named Stella.
Moheckie--And thank goodness.
Karen51--Welcome to the Dept., or at the very least, to Comments. Sadly, my husband is not yet retired, so he can't join me whenever I get the itch to Go. Happily, however, he is unselfish and wonderful, and encourages me in my jaunts. Road trips are terrific, and I highly recommend them, especially when you can gently impose upon friends. It is immensely soul-satisfying in a great many ways.