It always takes you by surprise. You wake up one morning, look out of the window and you know it is here. The next act. Someone changed the background lighting, overnight, from grey to yellow, the shade of hope. Then, things move along in a frenzy.
Images appear and disappear as if from a flip-book. The calls of coiffed cardinals that make you look up every time, new sunlight filtering through miniscule translucent green leaves, the "smell of the earth", of fresh life, a burst of brilliant colors, bumble bees suspended in air like tiny helicopters. It is almost as if life is making up for lost time spent sleeping all winter. The window of opportunity is small. Buds turn into full bloom within days, possibly hours. This regeneration of life everywhere; it overwhelms you.
Ducks bear little ones. Motherhood turns them into authoritative figures. They don't run away from from you anymore. They lay claim to their land, their offspring. They challenge you when you get too close. Puppies begin to chase emboldened squirrels.
But before you can register all this, and finish that sneeze, plan that picnic, you are thrown headlong into those lazy hazy crazy days of summer. And you are left wondering if you just imagined it all.
And then you realize, summer was the goal all along. Spring was just the heady hurried preparation leading up to it. Like the household of a bride before her wedding day. And you think to yourself ,
"Next time, I will savor spring".
I leave you now with a recipe for stuffed eggplant. This is a creation of mine stemming from my undying affection for Quinoa and my resolve to show my husband that eggplants are edible.
We had this on the first day of spring. I was just breaking out of a culinary lull and this very dish became my inspiration for this blog. Bright, fanciful and flighty; much like spring itself.
