- White With Green Trim
It has snowed on and off for the past few days in Oysterville. Not enough to fully blanket the world in white. Not enough to be really pretty. Only enough to be wet and slippery and cold. Only enough to gladden my heart that we could enjoy most of the Martin Luther King weekend right here at home.
Patches of green lawn still poke through, and the evergreen trees and bushes haven’t even retained a dusting. The world beyond my windows looks to be completely green and white. And here I am in a big white house with green trim. Color coordinated!
No wonder this is the time of year that our thoughts turn to spring gardening! And no wonder we get excited when we see the crocuses and daffodils emerge – the first bits of color after the monochrome of winter! I have fantasies of shopping for a new spring frock and maybe even a hat! But, of course, I won’t. Not yet.
Instead, I’ll stick to my writing and maybe even take a break to answer some overdue correspondence. It’s a time for catching up with the quiet side of life – a time for remembering and repairing, for reacquainting and regrouping.
Yesterday I received an email from a friend who said he was sitting by the fire watching the snow melt. I had a chuckle over that. A lot like watching a slice of apple turn brown, I thought. But still…
Isn’t it lovely to have that kind of leisure? So much better than slipping and sliding along the roads in a rush to get somewhere else. On reflection, I am content to hunker down in this Oysterville world of green and white. Spring with its busy colors and demands will come soon enough.
We, like Mother Nature, need to use Winter to recharge our batteries and dream of Spring. Without Winter, Spring and Summer would lose their luster for us. Four seasons, and the gifts each brings, are important. Living somewhere where one is little decernable from the other would be boring. This is the perfect sort of weather for reading novels and seed catalogues.
Well, up in Olympia we had on-again, off-again snow also until last night, and then KABOOM! I’m staring out at about a foot of snow right now, and thinking that soon I had best burn off some calories by going out and clearing the driveway. Of course, when I checked the forecast the upper corner of the web site had my saved patch for Long Beach, and it said 51 degrees and fog at 1:45 this afternoon, so apparently you folks on the Peninsula didn’t get hit like we did (but then, you rarely do). I can’t get upset about it, however, as I’m also watching neighbors–both children and those who haven’t forgotten how to be children–enjoying their day off immensely, and there’s also the full-color catalog for lilies sitting next to my keyboard to remind me of the colorful times to come. Oh, and my Nook is fully charged and waiting with some new books from the library, and the cats have crashed in front of the wood stove, and a hot cup of tea will be there after I shovel the driveway–all in all, really a good day.