Still Waiting…

The trees are bare

This morning we awoke to this.

In early April the days are often gray and gloomy here.  Snow showers spit.  Wind blows like crazy.  We even have little power failures that blink on and off. We keep our flashlights close by while we wait for spring. The trees are still bare. Occasional bushes have peeping green buds, but the only flowers that are up now are daffodils and a few crocuses. 

Harbinger of Spring

Then there is a sudden reminder that the weather will change for the better. We have a warm, mostly sunny day. We spot our usual spring visitors on the pond—Canada geese.  They thankfully do not stay the summer. They are not my favorite birds.  We also have a pair of mallards.  I wonder if one of these days we will see them with goslings or ducklings trailing. 

Spring Visitors

I am thinking about gardening — planting some vegetables and flowers. The Robins are back in the yard, pulling worms from the earth. We will put our bird feeders up soon, especially the ones that bring the goldfinches.  I love them. They are fragments of gold dipping and sweeping through the trees.

We have just celebrated Passover—the strangest one we have ever celebrated. When I was small my mother always made what she called Spring Salad during Passover. A bowl of fresh vegetables with cottage cheese and sour cream. Today I made it in her memory, and as a reminder that Spring is really here, even if the temperature doesn’t match.

Life here in the country is slow. We take walks. Work on projects. Design elaborate meals. ZOOM with friends and family. Spend hours on email and on line. Listen every day to our Governor’s news conferences and hang on his hopeful, and realistic plans.

I worry and wonder about what the world will be like in six months, a year, two years. Have we learned the lessons we need to make sure that all the “too-long ignored problems” that have been exposed in this country can begin to be solved? The holes in our health care “system,” which is less a system then a patchwork. The divisions between those that are privileged and those that hang on by a fingernail. The catastrophic warnings that our global economy and our fragile climate are signaling. And can we do it without losing the genuine goodness that we see every day in the American people who reach out to neighbors and strangers alike and help as much as they can.

I know that Spring will come. It always does. I hope and pray that we will have genuine leadership from Washington, and cooperation among countries that will allow us to work together to solve these complicated problems once and for all. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting….