Seasons Are A-Changin’

I should be washing the stained dishes piled in my kitchen sink that have been sitting there since having a friend over for dinner.  I should be packing for my trip to Long Island on Saturday.  I should have taken Benadryl because my nose is running away with itself thanks to spring allergies.  I should be praying for my friend with cancer.  I should be praying for the family at home who just lost a loved one to cancer.  I should be figuring out how I’m going to revise my department’s budgets at work so I can have everything turned in before my trip.  There is so much on my mind and lots of things I should be doing, but I need to sit a spell, let my brain wander.

I went to a friend’s documentary screening tonight at the Nashville Film Festival.  It was fabulous.  The film is called Nashville 2012 and highlights stories from the city that really gave me a new perspective on the life that exists here.  I cried on the drive home, in the dark, being tossed by the winds of the coming storm headed our way tonight.  There is so much I don’t know about life.  So much that overwhelms me with awe.  Peoples’ stories are mind blowing if you take the time to sit and listen.  Even the most ordinary among us has a history.  I hope that as I grow older, I remember to listen, to hear what is not spoken, to see what lies beneath the surface.

Spring finally came and blew me away with its splendor.  The cherry tree in my  backyard was breathtaking.  The tulips at Cheekwood put on such a show, displaying the colors of the rainbow as they were intended to be shown.  My seedlings are struggling to survive and I’m holding out hope that they’re going to make it.  I walk around my yard every morning, anxiously checking on the plants, spraying the dratted aphids on the daylilies, watering the one drooping armeria, dead-heading the blooming perennials, fretting over the beet seeds I planted, worrying about whether I need to re-pot the Japanese maple…this yard will bring me such joy and be the death of me all at the same time.

Pictures really are worth a thousand words, and I could blather on, but I’d rather show you the magic happening around here.

The little seedlings have grown up a bit since putting them outside in the sun, but boy are they behind schedule.  I feel like a failure.  Next year I am definitely buying a grow light.  No more depending on the intermittent sun of early spring.