Growing Versions

 Each year, piece by piece, the knowledge  grows.  It's not knowledge I use everyday, it's not innate, but it's in there germinating.  Magnolias come first, and then daffodils, then rhododendrons and tulips. There are gaps, when exactly do the forsythia come? What is the sequence? Spotted some apple blossom tonight at the playground. Waiting impatiently for the lilacs... I will read this next winter to remind me about what I already know come spring.

"For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone... In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured." -Herman Hesse

"No can be no or know. Ate can be eight or ate, like the number and eating.... One question...why does the river not run in the morning? Why does it only run after lunch and after school?" Well, what do you think happens in between morning and lunch time with the sun? "It warms up?" Yes. "It melts the snow banks?" Yes.  Is that the river over there? Yes, but it is turned off in the morning, remember?

The water runs all year long. It runs through blizzards, it slows but does not stop as we languish in the heat.  We forget all about it until we remember. The mosquitoes hatch and the bees wake up on the rocks. A stick, if you throw it, will drift down the river like a boat. Sometimes the stick you choose to throw gets wedged between two rocks or a tree root.  So, you do some work dislodging it by finding another stick to free it. Then you watch it disappear from sight. We just remembered, we have running water.

I commiserated with the mom at pick up about the frozen chunk of ice that broke the front wheel clear off her stroller. A fury at those frozen guardrails that hem us in rose up in me as we brainstormed a way to re-attach that wheel. For a while each winter the thaw and freeze cycle lines the way with grooves filled with shadows and snow. We get stuck walking in those grooves and they harness us into a very limited route. Like an animal tethered to a pole we walk in circles, and strain to upend the stake. Home, school, work, school, home again.  Like a record, we travel the grooves round and round until it stops.  The grooves get shallower, the rain comes over night, and we scatter.

 Instead of resisting the idea of a lemonade stand for weeks, and finally giving in,  I decided that this year I would keep ahead of the curve and have supplies on hand. If the mood arises, as it is bound to do,  we're ready to set up a lemonade stand at the drop of a hat. That way, all those weeks of ramping up (by my kids) and delay tactics (by me)  can be avoided for what ends up being a very short work day. Cell phones and debit machines have really taken a bite out of the lemonade stand trade and that tends to be pretty discouraging.  So, we've got the cups, we've got the lemonade crystals, we're ready for when the next entrepreneurial spirit strikes.

We have found all the eggs. The birds have flown out of their hiding spots and presented themselves, one by one. Flock by flock. The urge to hang clothes on the line and have the smell of the outdoors on my skin has returned. I am restless now.  I am restless to shirk my status as a specimen under artificial light.  It is time for me to emerge from my hiding spot and come out into the sunshine. How about you?

I really enjoy the conversations we have on the way to school, on the way to the bus stop, on the way to anywhere.  Unlike a lot of other times, talking while we walk is when I can be most present. Distractions are held at bay and I can more attend to listening. Sometimes though, I'd really rather not talk at all. It's funny, but often times the kids cease talking too, especially these days, shrouded as we are by winter wear and scrunchy rain hoods blocking sound, obstructing the easy flow of back and forth banter. We are hushed by the expanse of the sky, the swoosh of the passing buses, the rotting snowbanks being broken up by mud and growth. While we walk there is no radio or t.v. droning out our thoughts. We can turn within.  Some days our attention is very much turned outward by crusty icy bits or unusual sticks or new developments along the route. Nothing is blinking or demanding handheld attention. Speaking involves repeating ourselves too many times. Silence ...

I heard from an old neighbour that back in the day , she used to put up new wallpaper every spring.  She said that in many cases, people wouldn't strip the old wallpaper, they would just continue to layer it on year after year. We took down some wallpaper in my parents' place recently and underneath was a mermaid motif.  Years before I could remember, that room would have had  a totally different character.  The light would have been absorbed in  a much different way.   I think I have completely underestimated wallpaper and its leverage. Maybe I should not so blithely skip that step in my spring cleaning.

Just like when we come out of a matinee and we are unreasonably, but predictably, surprised by the light, we emerge from the winter blinking in the sun. The outdoors is beckoning. The back door was open yesterday afternoon, airing out our stale winter den.  Some days are colder than others, but the scent of spring is rapidly dispersing.  Mud pies, watering plants(and occasionally cats)with a spider man squirt ring and planting orange seeds with great hopes are all taking place in the outdoors  these days.