The other day my husband and I were having a discussion about Mother's Day. Since about this time last month, advertisements for the upcoming holiday have been everywhere. The first one I received was an e-mail proclaiming "Mother's Day is coming!" from a website intent on selling me things.
"I don't know what I'm going to do" I told him, as I sat on our bed next to him. He was rubbing my back as he often does, when he knows that I need comforting. "I kind of just want to crawl into a hole until the day is over and done with." He said that I should still celebrate the day. That I should still do the things I did for her, but to do them for myself this year instead.
My mother's favorite flowers were daisies. Every morning on Mother's Day, before everyone else woke up, I would sneak out of the house and into the back yard to pick some of the wild ones that grew everywhere. Daisies are abundant here in Kentucky. In spring and summer they sweep down the hillsides and fill the ditches with a profusion of white and yellow. They beg to be picked, and they grow so thickly that you can pick dozens of them without making a dent in their numbers. I would gather as many as I could and then tie them with whatever bit of ribbon I'd fished out of my stash of craft supplies, and would present them to her when she woke up. Sometimes I would make her a cup of coffee, except one year I mistook the salt for sugar and she banned me from making it after that.
The daisies weren't always blooming by Mother's Day. Sometimes the way the day falls it's just a little bit too early for them. Their heavy buds would be nodding on their stems, not ready to open for another week. Lately it seems that they've been blooming later and later in the year, so for the past few years I've simply gone to Lowe's and bought her a potted Shasta Daisy to plant. This year I had thought that if the daisies bloomed in time I'd pick her a bunch of them again, but of course she didn't live long enough for that. Spring has come to Kentucky, bringing with it warmth and sunlight and the whole world turning green and full of life. I hate that she died in winter, during one of the worst ones we've had in a while. Her last few months she spent miserably cold because she had lost so much weight that she couldn't sustain her own body heat. She was wrapped in robes and blankets and she kept the heat turned up so high that her electric bills were outrageous. I wanted so badly for her to make it until Spring, so that she could see the sun and feel the warmth of the air one more time.
Mom died exactly a week to the day before her birthday. She died the day before my sister's birthday. Firsts are hard. Having to deal with those particular firsts so soon after the fact was surreal. I was still shocked and numb by then, and both birthdays went by in that haze. With Mother's Day, there has been time for the shock to wear off. The numbness to pass. I feel a sense of rising panic with every e-mail or TV advertisement that I see for it. All I want to do is pick daisies for her. Make her coffee (with sugar, very carefully avoiding the salt). I want to go to Hallmark and find the perfect card to give her, signing it with Xs and Os. It's strange to realize I'll never do that again.
I want her to see the profusion of daisies in the ditches and the fields and I want to hear her say how they're her favorite. Just one last time.
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Monday, March 8, 2010
So long, Jack Frost
Today was the first truly warm day of the year. The temperature made it all the way up to 63 degrees, which meant that people everywhere were wandering around in shorts and short sleeved t-shirts. Not being a true Kentucky native, I never fully adapted to the colder weather. I can tolerate more than my fellow native Floridians, but I will never be brave enough to pull out the shorts until the weather is well into the high 70s. The people here will put on shorts as soon as it gets above 50 degrees.
This weekend I went shopping for a bit, enjoying the sun and the promise of spring. The stores were full of women buying pretty spring dresses, sandals, and sunglasses. Like Goldfinches we seek to shake off our drab hues and decorate ourselves with brilliant plumage as the weather heads towards something more tolerable. This was a long, difficult winter. Not just for us, but everywhere seemed to be hit hard by snow and ice. Here, it just seemed to be never ending bitterly cold weather, punctuated by inches of snow.
Having plenty of pretty dresses, I did resist the urge to indulge in something that will only languish in my closet for a while. I still need to do my seasonal closet purge, and I need to seriously reconsider my shoe collection. My knees have not been very happy with me, which means high heels are right out until my knees get better. I realized this past week that I have very few pairs of flat, practical shoes. I've been wearing the same pair of hastily purchased comfortable boots nearly every day, because about 95% of my shoe collection consists of heels. I bought the boots one day when I was walking around the mall and thought "I cannot take many more steps in these shoes". Luckily for me, Dillard's was having a massive sale on boots, so I got them for cheap, and they're my favorite comfort brand of shoe (Born).
I am looking forward to putting away the bulky layers of winter. I feel like an onion sometimes, shedding scraps of clothing everywhere I go, leaving trails of gloves and hats and scarves around the house, in my car, in my desk drawers at work. I've been viewing the world through the slit between the constrictor-like twists of my scarf and the bottom of my fashionably slouchy (and therefor cumbersome) hat.
Bring on the warm weather. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, I'd like to strip off a glove or two.
This weekend I went shopping for a bit, enjoying the sun and the promise of spring. The stores were full of women buying pretty spring dresses, sandals, and sunglasses. Like Goldfinches we seek to shake off our drab hues and decorate ourselves with brilliant plumage as the weather heads towards something more tolerable. This was a long, difficult winter. Not just for us, but everywhere seemed to be hit hard by snow and ice. Here, it just seemed to be never ending bitterly cold weather, punctuated by inches of snow.
Having plenty of pretty dresses, I did resist the urge to indulge in something that will only languish in my closet for a while. I still need to do my seasonal closet purge, and I need to seriously reconsider my shoe collection. My knees have not been very happy with me, which means high heels are right out until my knees get better. I realized this past week that I have very few pairs of flat, practical shoes. I've been wearing the same pair of hastily purchased comfortable boots nearly every day, because about 95% of my shoe collection consists of heels. I bought the boots one day when I was walking around the mall and thought "I cannot take many more steps in these shoes". Luckily for me, Dillard's was having a massive sale on boots, so I got them for cheap, and they're my favorite comfort brand of shoe (Born).
I am looking forward to putting away the bulky layers of winter. I feel like an onion sometimes, shedding scraps of clothing everywhere I go, leaving trails of gloves and hats and scarves around the house, in my car, in my desk drawers at work. I've been viewing the world through the slit between the constrictor-like twists of my scarf and the bottom of my fashionably slouchy (and therefor cumbersome) hat.
Bring on the warm weather. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, I'd like to strip off a glove or two.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A Dark and Stormy Night
January is in its last week, and it seems as though this month has stretched on forever. It started off bitterly cold and then turned into a rain-soaked mess, which we are still in the middle of. Today was the first day we've had in a week where it was not pouring down.
It's been so foggy here that the mornings and nights have rendered the rest of the world invisible to me. When I look out my front door, all I can see of the house across the street is one hazy halo of light from their front porch. The trees are hulking spider-shapes that loom out unexpectedly whenever I leave the safety of my porch. It's wonderful and disturbing and makes me think that ghosts must be lurking somewhere out there, because if ever there was weather that suited a lost spirit, this is it.
Today was unusually warm for the season, and it was like the tiniest scrap of spring crept out for a single day, but next week it will be lost to the cold temperatures again. The ground is soggy, made up of sucking mud that weighs down my shoes and gets all over everything.
Such is winter, here in Kentucky. It's really no more than I expect. The only good thing so far is that we've not had another ice storm, like we did last year.
Despite the brief respite from the rain, I stayed inside for the most part today. I wanted to take my camera out and take some pictures of the bare trees, the flooded creeks, and my poor, mud-caked goat, but laziness prevailed. Not laziness, exactly, because I have been working today. I've been making jewelry, and etching copper, and doing the massive loads of laundry that this time of year generates.
I wish spring were here, and I look everywhere for signs of it, but I find none. It won't be until the end of next month that it starts to show itself in the red buds clustering on the maple trees, and the first crocus blooms pushing their way out of the ground. By the end of March the woods will have the faintest haze of green and Bluets will start to pop up in clusters around the yard.
For now it's just mud, and rain, and ice, and more fog than a victorian murder mystery would know what to do with, and a slow deep ache in my joints that begs for warmer, drier weather. Alas, I must wait.
It's been so foggy here that the mornings and nights have rendered the rest of the world invisible to me. When I look out my front door, all I can see of the house across the street is one hazy halo of light from their front porch. The trees are hulking spider-shapes that loom out unexpectedly whenever I leave the safety of my porch. It's wonderful and disturbing and makes me think that ghosts must be lurking somewhere out there, because if ever there was weather that suited a lost spirit, this is it.
Today was unusually warm for the season, and it was like the tiniest scrap of spring crept out for a single day, but next week it will be lost to the cold temperatures again. The ground is soggy, made up of sucking mud that weighs down my shoes and gets all over everything.
Such is winter, here in Kentucky. It's really no more than I expect. The only good thing so far is that we've not had another ice storm, like we did last year.
Despite the brief respite from the rain, I stayed inside for the most part today. I wanted to take my camera out and take some pictures of the bare trees, the flooded creeks, and my poor, mud-caked goat, but laziness prevailed. Not laziness, exactly, because I have been working today. I've been making jewelry, and etching copper, and doing the massive loads of laundry that this time of year generates.
I wish spring were here, and I look everywhere for signs of it, but I find none. It won't be until the end of next month that it starts to show itself in the red buds clustering on the maple trees, and the first crocus blooms pushing their way out of the ground. By the end of March the woods will have the faintest haze of green and Bluets will start to pop up in clusters around the yard.
For now it's just mud, and rain, and ice, and more fog than a victorian murder mystery would know what to do with, and a slow deep ache in my joints that begs for warmer, drier weather. Alas, I must wait.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Sparrow Deathmatch.
Yesterday afternoon I decided to brave the cold and take advantage of the lovely sunlight that was filling the yard. It was just right for taking jewelry photographs, and with the upcoming bad weather there's no telling when I'll get another sunny day.
Outside in the junipers, four sparrows were engaged in battle. It's that time of year, when Spring is like an itch between your shoulderblades..you can feel it lurking there, driving you a little bit crazy, but still completely unreachable. All of the critters here have sensed it. The trees and bushes are full of fighting, singing, dancing birds. Robins are on the front lawn. When digging in the yard over the weekend I found pale earthworms in the dirt.
Oh, and the mud. The other sign that spring is coming is when the ground thaws and turns into a shoe-sucking mixture of wet clay, dirt, and puddles of standing water. There's nothing quite like the mud here. I've been slogging through the yard in galoshes.
But I did get my photographs, even though I had to beat a hasty retreat when the sparrows started fighting in the eaves above my head. The piece I was photographing is yet unfinished, just waiting for four beads to arrive from Thailand. It will be several weeks before it's done. Ah well. I can wait. But I shall leave you with a preview:
Outside in the junipers, four sparrows were engaged in battle. It's that time of year, when Spring is like an itch between your shoulderblades..you can feel it lurking there, driving you a little bit crazy, but still completely unreachable. All of the critters here have sensed it. The trees and bushes are full of fighting, singing, dancing birds. Robins are on the front lawn. When digging in the yard over the weekend I found pale earthworms in the dirt.
Oh, and the mud. The other sign that spring is coming is when the ground thaws and turns into a shoe-sucking mixture of wet clay, dirt, and puddles of standing water. There's nothing quite like the mud here. I've been slogging through the yard in galoshes.
But I did get my photographs, even though I had to beat a hasty retreat when the sparrows started fighting in the eaves above my head. The piece I was photographing is yet unfinished, just waiting for four beads to arrive from Thailand. It will be several weeks before it's done. Ah well. I can wait. But I shall leave you with a preview:
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