The End Of Spring

It's a funny thing - last week we were in the middle of rainy, SNOWy spring and suddenly this week has surprised us with radiant almost-summer, the trees heavy with blossom - my yard alone is lush in yellow and white and heavy pink flowers, sending waves of perfume and bees - and light green leaves everywhere and flowers in every old corner. And everytime I go outside I stand breathless for a moment, caught with delighted surprise by the sudden lush beauty, the sudden golden loveliness that is my dumb old yard.

But the days will wear on and someday soon I doubtlessly will go outside and walk right by the staunch daffodils and the old, old crabapple tree heavy with blossoms (still) and the tall, tall tree with a bird's nest right at the top and I will barely notice it, will walk through this short-lived miracle and hold it as commonplace.

My kids and I spent much of the afternoon outside today, it being a lovely day - still and warm - and they dug around in the bush, looking for old loot and finding pieces of cracked china and small glass bottles and I sat in a yard chair in the shade of a flowering tree and read a book. And there you have as nearly as I will ever come to complete and total happiness, fragile and passing.

The Baby ran past me as we walked outside, dashing behind the wall of young trees and in between them I could see flashes of her and her pink dress, her too-thin white legs swinging out like a pendulum that only moves forward, like a clock that is counting down the days until her fine-tuned heart, her little glowing self, is just a daily occurrence to me. The days are turning, the world spins round, the flowers come up every year again without fail. There is happiness that catches you suddenly in its grip, unearned, running by as fast as a child whipping through the trees.