Saturday, March 18, 2006

A good sign


Sunday March 12 was a rough day for around here.

Our first big storm system of the season roared across the plains peeling off tornados from Oklahoma to Indiana. Locally, the storms clobbered the campus of the University of Kansas an hour to the west and mean-looking clouds had most of the metro trying to remember the location of the nearest storm shelter.

And I was on my way to work on what is normally my one day off. But on the way there I spotted something I look forward to seeing every year: the first forsythia, although it would be more accurate to say "my first forsythia." Of all the hopeful shrubs doing their bright yellow thing in all the yards and parks in town, I spotted this one at 22nd & Grand Ave.

I first became aware of this harbinger of spring when I moved to Kansas City in the late 1980s. Forsythia may grow in the part of South Dakota I grew up in, but if it did I wasn't aware of it. The flora I associate with spring up there is the lilac, and that doesn't usually bloom until May. I moved from KC to northern California in 1991, but something is always blooming there, which tends to dull the effect.

I don't have a liturgical calendar to follow anymore but I'm still in need of signposts, something external to let me know that time is passing. Lent does the trick for a lot of people. (It does a whole lot more for people who take it seriously.) Forsythia does this one particular trick for me:

After winter's relatively short stay around here, it arrives in the spring as a reminder of rebirth. The yellow leaves turn green before long and give way to the dogwood and other blossoms, eventually blending in to the summer vegetation. By next month, they'll blend into the general greenery, one more thing for the dogs to pee on. But right now they'll bright and new, a reminder of the stubbornness of life moving forward and my growing another season older.

Ecce gratum et optatum ver reducit gaudia.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Tripper redux?

This could be the start of something modest.

That is, bringing back one of my favorite jobs: a semi-regular report on going and seeing.

And this time, I'm not even getting paid for it. Take that, Dr. Johnson.

Stay tuned.