Spring Renewal
Often, as I begin writing, I read what I have written in previous columns, particularly when the topic relates to the season. This morning I found something from 2018.
Salmon colored geraniums, magenta petunia’s, yellow forsythia, red roses, Black-Eeyed Susan’s, lavender lilacs, white begonias, and pink cherry blossoms. It’s been a spring defined by fog so it’s time to conjure up the colors that will soon define the landscape.
We cannot, of course, leave out the birds. The stately red cardinals, the handsome blue jays, and the sweet yellow goldfinches. We have a new birdfeeder at our house with wooden side panels that slide out, with a rounded glass front that rests on the windowsill in the living room so you can watch the birds as they slip into the glass feeder. The top panel opens making it possible to fill and clean the feeder from inside.
It’s encouraging, on a rainy day, to read that farm stands are announcing their opening dates and antique shops, closed during the cold winter months, are dusting shelves, and preparing for the summer vacationers. Ice cream shops shuttered closed during the coldest months when we can only think about hot chocolate will soon be serving cones and sundaes. I defy anyone to resist an ice cream cone on a glorious summer day.
The column went on to describe an exquisite exhibition that was on view in the Asian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled: Diamond Mountains: Travel and Nostalgia in Korea The Diamond mountains, or the Kumgang mountain range, is located just over the border in North Korea about 31 miles from the South Korean city of Kumgang city of Sokcho. The mountains have seasonal names and the spring name is Kŭmgangsan. These mountains, because of their location in North Korea have been inaccessible in modern times, yet this exhibition, I recall, featured beautifully painted scrolls and screens and a few modern and contemporary paintings from the eighteenth century to the present.
Yes, the spring flowers are in bloom and the colors are beautiful. The temperature is moving up by degrees each day and if the forecasters are correct, it will be in the seventies, perhaps pushing even higher by the end of the week. I’m certain the flowers are feeling a bit confused.
I also recently found a brochure that describes the “Ice Cream Trail” in New Hampshire. The map is produced by the Granite State Dairy Promotion and features about 42 ice cream scoop shops across the State. Would you rather challenge yourself to climb the Appalachian Mountain Club’s “Four Thousand Footer Club,” formed in 1957 to introduce hikers to some of the lesser-known sections of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, or drive around New Hampshire
in a convertible eating ice cream? Just a question. The 2023 map will be available on Memorial Day weekend when most of the shops have reopened for the summer. You can find the map and other ideas for summer excursions at: www.visitnh.gov/
My thought was to write about spring cleaning. Decluttering the closets, taking dishes down from the shelf for a deep clean. Somehow when I began to think about spring flowers, the beauty of the mountains and waking up to the sound of birds singing, cleaning just didn’t seem to matter. I thought about how quickly time slips away, as we move from one season to another.