When you have more than one child, you know not to make comparisons as they grow. Each one has superior traits, and struggles with unique sensitivities. You love them for who they are and you help them thrive in the way that gives them as close to a lifetime of happiness as is possible.
So why do we still compare everything else on this planet and rank it all as if it were one competition?
Why did I, for example, sneak a peak at my blog post from April 19, 2021, just to see what flowers were blooming then? (Answer: daffodils were almost past their peak, tulips -- those not chomped down by the groundhog -- were starting their show, and hyacinths were bulging with bloom buds.) It just made me groan with despair as I looked out onto the stubbornly cold garden. Well, maybe not despair, but I did have unfavorable thoughts about what's taking place now (very little) as compared to last year (a lot).
I mean, does this even count as a first daffodil bloom of the year? I don't think so.
Maybe this?
Nope, not yet. Really, I have to be satisfied with these, from the store (and yes, I baked muffins this morning):
At this point, I have to remind myself of the huge significance of April 22nd -- and I don't mean the fact that it follows April 21st. I mean that it is, at least since 1970, Earth Day. Did you know that it was Gaylord Nelson, then a junior senator from Wisconsin, who came up with this celebratory date, picked from the calendar almost randomly, in between spring break and final exams at our university, so that it would capture a large student participation?
For me, Earth Day is like a reset click: the time to make sure I am really paying attention to what's outside in my immediate environment, and how it's thriving under our stewardship. This week, everything will be very late in showing its spring growth, but even in this unique year, we will get there, and a spring burst of color will come eventually. Patience, Nina! Cultivate patience!
In the meantime, it is still cold outside, but I am finally motivated, so I do garden prep work, digging out weeds -- for the flowers that will eventually go in, for the seeds that are yet to be sown, for all that I hope to accomplish this growing season.
I'm also getting the tubs ready for the annuals. They are a super important component of my garden plan, as they carry me through early spring and late autumn and, too, I experiment with new and old plants in combinations that are both familiar but sometimes sort of whimsical. Ed went to Farm and Fleet and picked up some tin tubs to replace the wooden planters we've used up to now. The wooden ones do not last more than about three or four seasons. They rot, they splinter, they disintegrate. So he wants to try something more durable. Talk about funky! I'll take a picture once there are flowers inside. Right now they look like the tubs my grandma would have used for washing clothes outside, back in the 1950s.
And right around lunch time the phone rings. This, I have to admit, is an expected call, though I wasn't sure it would come so I kept it to myself. It's from my eye surgical team and they want to fit me in for surgery on my most offensive eye (sorry, no insult intended) for tomorrow.
Tomorrow?? Yikes!
What about the second eye? (They only do one at a time.)
Well, that's a problem. We don't have another opening until late summer.
Wait, I will need glasses for one eye and a reading lens for the other? That sounds totally weird.
I have to agree -- she tells me. It will be strange.
Nonetheless, I am moving ahead with it. I am not one who likes waiting around for exciting new developments. [Wow, two unrelated surgeries in one week! Am I feeling old yet??]
And in the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. It's just warm enough for her to be tempted by the outdoors again. Well, for a few minutes anyway.
In the early evening, we pick up Sparrow and I drive the two jovial kids home.
("hey, I'm jovial too!")
(daddy's still at work, mommy's busy with dinner, so she helps him with homework...)
After that, the evening is a blur, not the least because I'm pumping mega amounts of drops into my soon to be butchered eye. (You're supposed to be medicating the eye for three or four days prior to surgery, so I'm making up for lost time.)
Dont you think it's a perfect moment for a frittata?
(with spinach and oyster mushrooms from the Saturday market)
And if it's frittata, then I'm almost sure to get a FaceTime call from the Chicago group! It just somehow works out that way.
Later, much later, Ed pops corn and I pour a nice fat glass of white Burgundy. Drinking wine was the one thing that did not make the list of all that I cannot do in the next twelve hours.
What an interesting way to end my run as a 68 year old, don't you think? (By Thursday, I'll be 69.)
With love...
