We had severe storms here yesterday, as predicted, with heavy rain and strong wind gusts and multiple tornado warnings in areas all around me that lasted for hours. It’s unsettling how quickly tornados pop up and how fast they move, unlike a hurricane that you can see coming for days.
Graphic credit: WRAL.com
Today is sunny and cool and breezy, a storm-washed crispness in the air usually only felt in the fall. I’m fortunate that debris cleanup in my yard will be minimal. A few small branches, several downed clumps of fragile new leaves, a scattering of maple “helicopters” and oak tassels carpeting the deck.
The blossoms from the flowering cherry tree are blown or washed away from where they adorned the sidewalk just last week.
A small child (I assume; perhaps a playful adult) helped with the first pile of petals, an unexpected bit of “artful destruction” that made me smile.
A few weeks earlier, the dark bark and purple blossoms of a redbud stood out against a thick morning fog. So hard to capture a good picture of elusive fog (especially with my amateur photography “skills”).
The dogwoods are mostly done blooming and in full leaf now, the azaleas and camellias hanging on to a few stubborn displays of red and coral and white among new growth.
Signs of spring in the process of giving way to eventual summer.
I’m sitting here with the back door open, listening to birds and the lull of distant traffic. Too wet still for the intrusive drone of leaf blowers or lawn mowers, an occasional gust brings the rustle of young leaves and, no doubt, our persistent spring pollen through the screen.
The breeze is cool enough that the cat is curled up in a chair, burrowed into a carelessly thrown blanket, snoring softly.
It’s a quiet afternoon.
I’m feeling the kind of melancholy that is more pensive or nostalgic than true sadness. Memories are there along the edges my mind, as are plans and anticipation, the past and the future, pushing gently or pulling insistently as is their wont. I acknowledge both, allow neither, pausing for a moment in the now. Between seasons, as it were.
KD James 