Sunny Sunday

This morning broke bright and beautiful. Intensely bright sunshine beating through the windows. Though bright sunny mornings are wonderful, I guess they aren’t all that strange an occurrence. This one though came after 36 hours of steady rain. When Allison and I came home from the gym yesterday, she said she was not usually bothered by rainy days, but this one was really getting her down. Me too. It was our 4th washed out Saturday in a row. There is so much that I need to do out there, and Saturday is my only chance. So I’m a month behind. Next week is forecast the same. Sunny and 70s all week, wet and cold on Saturday. Yes, Spring is at the door.
A very mild and strange winter has ushered in a lot of early occurrences this year. You’ll remember that I get quite annoying this time of year with all my blooming announcements and dated and documented seasonal arrivals. It’s now to the point that with each springy occurrence, I check last year’s blog to find out how the dates match up. It all starts during birthday month. Groundhog day on the 2nd, and then we await the arrival of the Robins. Last year, the Robins came earliest they ever had. They arrived early in the morning on my birthday. I was sitting at the kitchen table, looking out on the deck and a robin flew in. I got up to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, and lo, there were hundreds of them in the back yard turning over leaves, flipping dirt, and hopping around in the morning dampness. What a birthday present – an early announcement of spring. I went through the rest of the season begging for new life and announcing each new blossom and rising temp and lengthening day.
This year, I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut for longer so as not to bore you, so I didn’t announce that the Robins came more than a week before my birthday this year. Allison and I were driving home and saw them all along Irmo drive. I guess they weren’t really sure it was time either, and needed to come to the Tulip trees to be certain. Sure enough, the Tulip trees also bloomed two weeks early and today the blossoms are already falling off. The crocuses were beginning to bloom two Sundays ago. A week and a half ago, the daffodils began to bloom. They’ve been slow, and they’re small, but they’re blooming. This past week, the buds on the Bradford pears began to burst.
Yesterday’s depressing rain had its purpose. Today’s sunshine will warm the blossoms. It takes both kinds. It’s a lot easier in the sunshine to be thankful for the rain. The fragile, fleeting flowers remind us that both are equally important, and each year at this time, I’m reminded that re-birth follows death. Sunday morning, eh.