Spring Sunrise 2019

Waiting, waiting. . . purple clouds in the east, the great Source color-mixing on its palette in real time, then adding some light, knowing we are watching. Light is a specialty. The work must be totally unprecedented. There can be no error, cannot leave a blank space or discard and start over, must differ from all before it, because this day is a gift specifically for the majestic Earth, and the sunrise its wrapping! And it has to be unsigned so everybody and everything has to guess who gave it. Everyone's answer is different. Everyone is at a different place to receive it. Perfect! I'm smiling. The artist hopes only that the gift will make us smile.

I have enjoyed the long, elaborate, poetic springtimes typical of mid-Missouri, with upsetting lilacs and startling bunnies and winds that invent their own kites, and hope this spring is another. Not only that, I love sharing the greenery and music of the birds and frogs with visitors from the north who travel in a day from their winter to our spring, and marvel.

A Rough Draft of Spring

March has been very gray, unusually gray, or was that my imagination? No, my neighbor Terri noticed it too, and we pined for spring sunshine, but day after day it's as dark at 9 in the morning as if it's 9 at night, and most of the time, raining. It's rained eight days out of the last ten. Even my dream last night included rain. I was out in the rain and found the dead body of a pileated woodpecker and began crying. Nice dream, huh? Thanks, March. It's raining now.

Yes, how many gray days occupied the month of March 2018? How many cloudy days have besieged us until we are all slightly crazy with traffic accidents all along I-44 every freaking day? Or let's put it another way; how many sunny ("clear") days have we had in March? I searched for the answer and found it here. Exactly ONE sunny day all month so far: Saturday, March 3. There's a sunny day predicted for Friday, March 30; that's the only other, if it happens. TWENTY-NINE days out of THIRTY-ONE this month were cloudy, mostly cloudy, partly cloudy, snowy, "T-storms," or scattered clouds.

But before I learned this awful truth I woke the morning of the equinox, March 20, before sunrise, saw a blush of color in the east and excitedly thought, "I will take a picture of the sunrise and call it 'Spring Sunrise'!" and prepared my camera. Sunrises develop their color -- it's like stirring Crystal Light into a glass of water -- so I waited and snapped, anticipating more color, and what you see here, that little pinkish blush, faded and vanished beneath more gray, and since that day it's rained like all get-out. Yes, this is your "nature photo" for the month. I can't even remember what I did all this March except trying to see Black Panther on a Tuesday only to be told at the box office that the afternoon showing was all sold out.

Druid in a Bathrobe

East to west through 3 rooms

Whoever built the Divine Cabin in 1935 did it right, because March 20, equinox, at sunrise I was waiting like a druid in my bathrobe for the early sunbeams to knife straight through three rooms to the back wall. The builder cared enough to point the kitchen door precisely due east--so that the west-facing window hosted the exact same phenomenon, a sunbeam piercing the house clear through, in reverse in late afternoon. Does it in autumn, too. But spring is the most heartening time of year and its first day its most heartening day. I toasted it with coffee, ate cornmeal mush with maple syrup, and bacon--it doesn't get any better than that. . .smiled all day.

March 2017 has been 81 degrees and then 24 at night, and then it snowed, but every time this happens I frame it as spring starting all over again. Spring is a limited-time-only thing and I set the alarm now to get up before dawn so I experience as much of spring as possible. I think somehow it appreciates me back, turning all soft and green and baby blue.

The Happiest Day of the Year

Here it is -- the day I await all winter: the first crocus in the lawn, plus a bud for lagniappe. Joy; all doubts fade; all things are possible. The whole world looks beautiful now that it's reframed as spring. No wonder the ancient New Year came in March. I tore the plastic from the front window so I can see the east again, where the sun and the moon rise. It tore some of the paint from the house. I'll patch it up later.

Be Good to Yourself

When peeper frogs sing (March 12), crocuses bloom (March 13), and I plant turnips and arugula (March 17) is my favorite time of year, and giddy with cheerfulness I chose as my mission to do something nice for myself, but then came the questions: Get a Subway sandwich? Go to the gym? Manicure hands so winter-dry that the knuckles bleed? And driving up "the strip" I saw an Auto Zone. Inspired, I stopped and bought what I truly needed for a happy spring: New windshield wipers. Hearing the clerk explain all the new exciting windshield wiper technology was by itself worth the price--but I also got the wipers and installation, after which we tried 'em out. My old wipers streaked the windshield like grease on a glass pan. The new wipers opened a whole world of clarity--sweet! Miraculous! What better way to celebrate spring than to see it clearly? $34 is cheap for such a long-lasting thrill.

Then I bought my sandwich, telling the sandwich artist that the sandwich was beautifully made and leaving a good tip, and went to the gym, and had a manicure and left a good tip, and have never been so happy about being good to myself. So you be good to yourself. The old-time pagans feasted at this time of year. Feast and celebrate any way you can.

The Most Secret Secret Place

1. When I was 10 my mom called from work and told me to cook the steak for dinner. I didn't know how. The heat was too high and I burnt it black. Scared, before Mom got home I took the pan outside and dumped the charred steak - BEHIND THE GARAGE!

Behind the Divine garage

2. Grownups hated it when kids climbed their fences and sneaked through backyards, but we did it anyway. This route down our block began in the bushes BEHIND OUR GARAGE!

3. If my little friends and I wanted to play with matches or plant dollar bills to grow money trees, we went BEHIND THE GARAGE!

4. The previous residents of our house really liked the neighbors who lived in back of us, and had left a gap in the hedge and two flagstone steps leading into the neighbors' backyard. When no grownups were looking, we kids used this as our shortcut to Carter Street! These steps were located ______________.

5. When I grew up, my husband threw what I didn't want inside the garage BEHIND THE GARAGE!

6. In 2002 I rescued pink Missouri granite bricks from the gateposts destroyed when the state widened Highway F. I had no place to put them except BEHIND THE GARAGE and they are still there!

7. To get rid of 2x9 planks full of nails I can't pry out, I drag and dump them BEHIND THE GARAGE!

8. The only place on the property that Dutchman's Breeches (pictured) ever grow is in the woodsy, north-facing incline _______________!

Happy Spring Equinox y'all!