Once a year they come and go

And when we die we say we'll catch some blackbird's wing
and we will fly away together
come some sweet Bluebonnet spring.
~Nanci Griffith

So I've done nothing for the past month but read page after page of women writing about their gardens in colonial Australia and it is starting to get to my head. Despite the fact that all these things make me itch and swell and drip, I adore flowers and trees and all manner of green things. I really think that God knew what she was doing when she plopped me down in my place in the world, but I think that I was cheated out of a functional set of sinuses.

It's that time of year in South Carolina when daffodils start peeking out of the ground and the buds on the trees get red and swollen causing a the bare branches to have a pinkish tint from a distance. My birthday at the end of February is usually winter's last stand. Spring tends to be short in the south, turning into green (or brown depending on the year) fairly quickly. As much as I love the south in the springtime, it doesn't really have the potency of spring in the north. I remember this from my time in New York, fighting back tears to see clusters of crocus in the corner of my yard and little white flowers bursting out on the cherry trees in mid-April. I remember the horrible frustration of March (and to some extent April), which is an undeniably spring month in South Carolina and are most definitely not in New York (or, I fear, Chicago). But then, when the wait was over, you could feel the joy in the air as people chucked their gloves and mittens and sprawled out on the lawns.

Until recently, I'd never thought about how Lent usually coincides with March here. In SC, people get all decked out in their pastels and while sandals and lace, because Spring is in full bloom and the temperature is nearly always in the 70s every day by then. The anticipation is gone. But here, by early April, the world is only just starting to thaw out. After months of cold and gray, the world has become wet and fragrant and bright again. Life becomes possible again. How appropriate.