it had nearly failed

Glum… the perfect word to describe another dreary “spring” day. We did have a few days of warmer weather, and even some sun on one or two of the days, but the spring showers to welcome May flowers have descended.

Good news though: my cold is mostly over leaving a slight cough. Bearable, and I feel like I can join the human race again. I even got myself out of the house for a trip into the city yesterday. A bit of shopping (scored some great sandals that will be good for cruising and also around the house this summer, assuming we get summer).

After all that shopping I even had to energy to have Trudie & Leo over for a last minute visit after supper.

In the past the trees have been close to bursting forth with leaves and flowers threaten to overwhelm the senses with their beauty and fragrance.  But this year, the trees barely have buds (there have been some years that we’ve thought for sure it would be an early green day), and the tulips are barely up with no signs of bloom. There is no sign of apple blossoms. The garlic is about 6 inches tall. Everything is delayed.

I slid open the camper slides yesterday - too many asian beetles and dead flies to deal with at the moment. I’ll drag the vacuum out the first warm day and get the place ship shape for our upcoming trip. The grey skies are like a curtain between winter and summer and seem impossible to shift.

3:45 Cheeks red, eyes watering and a bit of an earache… yes, I was just outside around the field for 5 minutes. The dogs didn’t mind, but the spitting rain and cold wind was not my idea of spring, has it forsaken us? Or have I been asleep for half a year?

“With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.”
― Ernest Hemingway