Spring, 2020 - a modest change of pace

                                  Fiddle heads outside my window
                                         The music of Spring

"Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event," wrote the French philosopher, Bachelard. 

Like so many displaced easterners, when I lived in LA I missed the change of seasons. Of course, there's change in California, too, but on a microcosmic scale. Locals revel in it - poppies, birds of paradise, kumquats - but I say, "Feh". Our woods and fields in the northern Catskills (a far range of the Appalachians) are flush with Appalachian spring. Our brooks and creeks are high and clear. Fresh, vibrant colors on Hunter Mountain. Trees with full chests proudly puffed out. So many shades of green. Dew on the buttercups. You don't need to search for flowers in the east. Look anywhere, some tiny, like pinheads, dots of color, hard to see. How many angels can dance on them? Others the size of tulips and rhododendron and lilac, early blooms. All of their aromas mix and swirl in pure air parfait. Why breathing was invented. 

Spring came so slowly this year it seemed as if the planet had stopped. It's here now, the time of the year when I feel the most alive. This one, this spring, is different than any that have come before. I no longer see Spring through these jaded eyes, but through the eyes of a twenty month old rambunctious little boy, fearless, a curious, observant, joyous little life with a swarthy walk, his arms trailing behind him like a cape. He is Dorian Alexander, my grandson, my first, my only, who has taken my heart to new dimensions. Who knew? You think you know, but you do not know. Strike a match; Detonate a nuclear bomb. That's the difference we're talking here. 

Today we planted the garden, and Dorian discovered a wheelbarrow. His observation is  meticulous. What is this? What does it do? How does it work? Can I eat it? We planted pumpkins first so there'll be a magic pumpkin patch for Halloween. Last night we cooked hot dogs over a bonfire, Hebrew National with Nathan's mustard. He sprawled in my lap as we watched the bright, sickle moon dodge in and out of roving clouds. Art makes me cry. The night sky strikes me dumb. He did not take his eyes off the spectacle, and I did not take my eyes off his face. His uninhibited joy blots out the world and all its problems. I think to myself, "This is perfect. This is wonderful." Sparks flutter up and disappear in the darkness. No pull of gravity. The peace of sleep. Wouldn't this be when you'd want to die? When everything is perfect? Not that I'm ready because I certainly am not, but wouldn't it? In theory?

Tomorrow I intend to introduce him to buttercups, and soon we'll go down to the edge of our brook and hunt salamanders. Dorian's never seen any of this before, and, consequently, neither have I.

"Oh, come on, Foreman! Stop posturing! You know you've seen all of it, over and over and over. 'Fess up.  Over and over."

Well, guilty, yes, of course, I'll 'fess. All of it before, most every bit of it, however, just as every garden is the same and different, every tree the same and different, every creek the same and different, everything out there seems brighter, more vibrant, more aromatic, a gentle, golden shimmer over all. 

And now I know what a wheelbarrow is.

                                                              END