Spring is a new beginning

Mid day. Sun shining. Outside temperatures in negative single digits. Tomorrow's forecast is for 7" to 10" of snow. Pretty typical mid January for the North Country. The Better Half's [BH] window sill orchids don't do much to improve the situation since there's usually at least a couple of them in bloom year round. On the other hand, BH, a couple of weeks ago, bought two pots of "Spring bulbs." The pot with the sunshine-colored tulips is now coming into bloom. The amaryllis have grown to be about a foot tall but snow no signs of blossoms yet. I suspect some time will be spent this weekend staring at signs of a living, growing, blooming world that, in reality, is several months away. By late March though it should be time to look for skunk cabbage emerging in the nearby wetlands.

why are there green leaves on a beach plum in January?

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, I remain surprised to the point of astonishment that two of the beach plum plants continue to hold green leaves. The other two plum plants show no signs of life at all. We keep checking to see if their indoor location is encouraging any signs of early bud burst.

how long until we look for this sign of Spring?

Photo by J. Harrington

All of the preceding could be considered grasping at straws but, in fact, it's preferable to posting about the time I've been spending repairing several years worth of file, book and magazine "infrastructure neglect." Progress is being made, slowly. If I use the sight of forced blooms to encourage completion of the filing and organizing and tax prep chores during the cold snowy days, it helps. Else I could end up sitting around, grumbling, and feeling sorry for myself, and that's not like me at all ; >) heh, heh.

On an even brighter side, this morning I rediscovered on of my favorite "systems" authors, Margaret Wheatley. She has a relatively new book that may offer me more hope than seems reasonable these days. I started rereading her first book, a simpler way, this morning. That prompted an internet check during which I discovered Who Do We Choose To Be? (the link is to a brief pdf of the book's table of contents). It appears to fit all too well with my perception of today's world and may help, I hope, me reduce my excessive cynicism. Spring is a new beginning, after all, but first we have to get there.

Of History and Hope

By Miller Williams

We have memorized America,

how it was born and who we have been and where.

In ceremonies and silence we say the words,

telling the stories, singing the old songs.

We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

The great and all the anonymous dead are there.

We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.

The rich taste of it is on our tongues.

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?

The disenfranchised dead want to know.

We mean to be the people we meant to be,

to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how

except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?

With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—

and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together

cannot become one people falling apart.

Who dreamed for every child an even chance

cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.

Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head

cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.

Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child

cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.

We know what we have done and what we have said,

and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,

believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—

just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set

on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—

but looking through their eyes, we can see

what our long gift to them may come to be.

If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

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