June 2025

The way things grow fast in movies... this is Fitzgerald's description of Spring, and I think he's rather right. There's always a moment in mid-march when I think "Oh what a lovely long Spring we're having, the blooms are just starting to appear and there's all the time in the world..." Then I blink. And it's Summer.  

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes...

- D. H. Lawrence, The Enkindled Spring

Not all at once though, it happens in a happy haze of love and labor. The seeds that slept beneath carefully dampened soil for what seemed like ages - testing your patience, toying with your hopes when that first spindly sprout appeared overnight, then remained, no bigger than a thread, for ages longer - suddenly start darting up everywhere and deciding to grow so quickly you could swear they are an inch or so taller in the evening than the morning. 

The days alternate between vibrant sun and torrents, sometimes both visit in the same day. The downpours come and go, and I survey my beleaguered little plants with woe. Then the light crashes through to sort things out, in a determined and put out kind of way - the Spring sun always reminds me of a jealous toddler, determined to have his way and not share the sky with rain clouds any longer than he absolutely has to - and what do you know?  Stems straighten by the moment,  leaves unfurl and flatten their palms heavenward, and roots, I like to imagine, stretch and revel and wiggle their toes deep in the warmed and sodden earth.

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"
...It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...

-  Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden