Spring green...

…and gold and red and pink and purple…

This is not going to be on an environmental topic. At least, not directly. This is going to be about spring, my favorite season. There is the long slow awakening of nature, daffodil spears pushing up out of the earth, snowdrops defying the snow cover, purple crocuses daring to show color after the white winter. On a more mundane note, as a forerunner of the season there are the tulips for sale in the grocery stores right after Christmas. White, red, yellow, pink, and one that is pink and yellow combined. Some sort of tulip is on sale every week, and I buy whatever it is. Last week it was a fabulous bunch of double tulips in red, yellow and pink, a veritable fiesta, which explodes slowly as the week goes on. The stems grow and the flowers get larger and begin to reach out sideways. I love that.

Then comes the day when the tulips on my balcony bloom. White and yellow they are, and when it is as warm and sunny as it has been this year, the petals of the white ones spread out into huge discs with yellow in the center and black stamens. The yellow blossoms are tinged with green when they first come into bud and then each petal is thinly outlined in red. Seeing them up close every day is to appreciate each nuance as they develop.

This year I had two pots of grape hyacinths, one of my favorite flowers. They were all the rage in the florists’ a couple of years ago, usually grown in gray baskets. Beautiful! I planted mine in a gray box planter that fits nicely on the windowsill.

The miracle of plenteous growth also takes place on my balcony when the clematis sends up tiny shoots from the dead-looking cut back stems. These shoots grow rapidly, and soon have to be tied up to keep them upright. They will reach up, up, up to the ceiling and will have to be trained on wires across the wall. The leaves make a carpet of green and then will come the small purple bells, perfect for the small setting of a balcony. Out in nature the tiny new leaves are now appearing on the trees as exquisite green lace. The contrast between this delicacy and the great spread of trees full of its magnificence is perhaps the very definition of spring and announces the coming of summer, when the trees will cast welcome shade.

Best of all, perhaps, is the warmth of the sun after a cold winter. The balcony is perfect at this time of year, being on the south side and protected from breezes. I have brought the rug up from the cellar and taken out the table where I eat and work on my computer. There is room for a comfortable chair so that I can read and look up from time to time to appreciate whatever is in bloom. It is this continuous change and the coming of new blossoms that makes it all so alive.

Alive and hopeful, for there is winter in all aspects of life as well. To trust that spring will come in a difficult situation, after a painful loss or when inspiration has gotten lost in dullness is to trust in life itself.