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A Dream of Spring

Posted on 1/15/2022 10:58:10 AM by Marilynne Eichinger - Comment on this
Topics: Art | social commentary

SPRING BURST

A Dream of Spring

As a child living on the 40th parallel in Philadelphia, I looked forward to the changing seasons. No school, hot days, swimming, and bicycling through the woods filled my days. I'd press Queen Ann's Lace in scrapbooks, hold buttercups under my friend’s chins to see if they like butter, and pull the petals off of daisies chanting, love me, love me not. Evenings, Mother would pay five cents for every beetle I picked off her prize rose bushes.

In September, making crunching sounds as I chomped through piles of yellow, red, and rust-colored leaves provided hours of fun. Later, I would go to our garden to guess what pumpkin would grow largest by the end of October.

By December, the silence of early winter snow blanketing city streets was broken by the laughter of children building snowmen. A short distance from home, our unplowed road became a perfect sledding hill. The Gray Nun's pond froze over for ice skating.

When spring arrived, it was Al Jolson's lyrics to April Showers filleing my mind with song.

“Though April showers may come your way

They bring the flowers that bloom in May

So if it’s raining have no regrets,

Because it isn’t raining rain you know, it’s raining violets. . .”

That was my world. It rained in April, and, as if by magic, caused flowers to appear overnight in May. On the first sunny day, I knew the parks would burst with an abundance of colorful blossoms and the songs of robins and bluebirds.

Until I moved west, I didn't realize that seasons differed along the 45th parallel. In the east, the town of Perry, Maine, marking 45 degrees north, gets more snow than Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon combined.

Where I live, I'm lucky if there's a week when I can cross country ski or sled by my house. With the warming climate, there are fewer cold days each year and no chance to ice skate on a frozen pond. Yet, there is a secret January holds that I find uplifting.

Rather than spring bursting on the scene in May, it unfolds in a slow, methodical way that begins shortly after the first of the year. Though horticultural books say it occurs in March, throughout the city, bright red Camellias cloaked in glossy green leaves blossom on bushe. Their blooms warn me that it is time to visit Elk Rock Garden to watch nature renew itself.

The February weekend I followed a botany professor taking a class through its grounds, I learned that my search for spring should begin the last week of January. I had already missed seeing early shoots pushing through the earth and first buds opening on a few branches. Thousands of Crocuses were starting to color the lawn with their purple and white weavings. It would not be long before bulbs of Snowdrops and Grape Hyacinths appeared. Then the Irises and Daffodils would show their heads, and with the forsythia, add life to a garden stretching its roots after a short winter's nap.

By March, buds rushed to open. Magnolias, Trillium, Tulips, Rhododendrons, and Hyacinths add more color to the city. A spectacular show of cherry trees hits the riverfront in April. And, in May there are more blooms than I can count--Rock Roses, Russian Daphne, Spirea, Barbery, Zinnias, and Peonies to name a few.

May is also the Month soil in backyard gardens is turned, fertilized, and made ready for planting. Vegetable and flower seeds are carefully spaced in rows and Sunday gardeners get prepared for a summer of weeding and watering.

Known as the City of Roses, Portland honors the most famous flower in the world. A trip to the Rose Test Garden in late May offers a cacophony of smells and colors as red, yellow, orange, and purple flowers surround the strolling visitors.

By June, when walking through the city, I revel in the ripening of the trees and think back to the first buds and shoots that appeared ing the New Year.

Though it's mid-January, with winter storms and cold weather along the 45th parallel. Though Portland's weather is balmy today and we may yet be faced with an arctic freeze and snow, daylight is lengthening, in my mind, spring has already arrived.