Hello. Just thought I'd offer you another colorful floral photograph. Only one. But I'll show you more next week. This "Through the Viewfinder" photo was taken late summer of last year. In my vast photography collections of blooming flowers, there is cause for a great yearning. It's a yearning for tranquil spring and carefree summer to arrive quickly!
Increasingly, I've grown quite anxious for perfumed scents in the air,
lush colors everywhere, and plentiful warm sunshine on my shoulders. Here in the Pacific Northwest where I live, spring began last week. Say what? How can this be? It doesn't feel like spring! As with every year at this time, the weather is erratic. One day for a few hours, sunshine reigns. Before long, skies become gray mists. The next day, wind howls, sleet mixes with snow. Yesterday, pouring rain, thunder and lightning. All last night rain trickled down the roof. Fortunately, the sounds helped lull me to sleep.
Now, early morning, it is breezy. And the rain continues to fall. I'm in my office writing this post and it's cold outside. Very cold! Bundled up in my warmest sweater, thick wool socks on my feet, I recall the springtime's I used to know. At least, I think I knew. And with this comes recollections of the places I used to live. From my birthplace in Panama, Central America, and then North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and onward to California. And if memory serves me right, those first signs of spring in places far away, brought forth cotton shorts and sleeveless shirts, flip-flops, and walks to school under blossoming trees. But perhaps memory serves wrong. I'm sure there were springtime's when the snow still covered the ground. Perhaps even into late spring. And those visions from a child. . . snow mounds looking ever so much like sleeping giants. And yes, it had to be that those school bound walks during the month of March were called off due to heavy snowfall.
But no matter where lived, alas, the season of renewal will finally appear in the most gentle of ways. Seems to me, those ways come when least expected. And when it happens, I'll rejoice in watching red-breasted robins tugging earthworms and the purple crocus drinking sunshine. I'll embrace those gentle perfumed breezes conjuring and recording more memories.
Until then, from my rain-streaked window there reveals a rectangle of bare wet trees. A neighbor walks against the wind and rain to her car. Seeing this, I am struck with a vision. A vision of a long ago New Yorker magazine cover. Or perhaps another magazine. Or maybe my own vision. No matter, it's the image of a man walking down a crowded city sidewalk. Dressed all in black, rain pelts the umbrella he carries over his head. The illustrator's brushstrokes sends the man's tie to blow in the wind. The painterly gestures of gusts of wind is amazingly believable.
Well, time to leave you now. Time for a hot breakfast.
Oh, snow is in the forecast tomorrow!
Cheers, June.
