Cold

Will spring never come? It feels like the answer to that is a resounding "NO!"

I don't know how many times I was out in it today, wrestling with a tarp or dodging rain or just trying not to get blown askew. Late this afternoon, I went to war with the giant umbrella where we stage orders for UPS — the tremendous gusts of wind had everything topsy turvy, and I was in danger of losing an eye to the whipping spokes. J. got on the table to set the umbrella upright so I could reel it in, and the table began to tip, and shouting began, but in the end, we finally got it secured without any organ loss.

March has been unforgiving. In like a lion, out like a cyclone. The year has me feeling beat up, slapped to bits, tossed inside out, and we're only three months in.

Cherry trees are in blossom and daffodils brave their cheerful souls in the cheerless gales, and I want to tell each flower go back inside. It's not time yet, really.

Recalling the anticipation of my first son's birth, twenty six years ago (come April 3rd). Pre-birth, I recall not a leaf on a tree, not a bud on a rose. Coming home from the hospital with my new baby, the world had gone crazy green with new growth in a matter of three short days. Nothing has been the same since.

Every year, late March, I search out Spanish bluebells, so that I can cut a bouquet for his birthday. This year for the first time, they are nowhere near blooming. And I'm still bundled in my black cashmere muffler, black beret; and somewhere the vague notion of summer exists — a mirage, an illusion, a conceit.