MARCH MELTS AWAY......

"If you go beyond the clouds, you will get endless sunshine...." -Mwanandeke Kindembo (philosopher)

THE EXCLAMATION MARK by Anton Chekov (excerpts) (1860-1904) Russian playwright and author and physician. Considered one of the best writers of short fiction. Winner of the Pushkin Prize. He supported his entire family on most of his writing earnings. He treated the poor for free and worked at reforming conditions for prisoners in the prisons. Chekov married in 1901. He had suffered  from TB  a good deal of his life and died in Badenweiler, with his wife Olga at his side.

The snow has not left the earth, but spring is already asking to enter your heart.

A delicious state of anticipation.

That is what nature is experiencing just now.

The ground is cold, mud and snow squelches under foot

How cheerful, gentle and inviting everything is!

The air is so cold and transparent 

If you were to climb to the top of the bell tower, you feel you might actually see the whole universe....

The sun is shining brightly,

It's beaming rays......

are bathing in the puddles

The river is swelling and darkening........

it has already woken up .....

very soon it will begin to roar........

The trees are  bare......

But they are already living and breathing.

Photographs 2021

 

LOVE MUCH

"The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes its loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.." -Harriet Ann Jacobs

LOVE MUCH by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)(excerpts) American Author and poet. Her autobiography, "The Worlds and I" was published in 1918

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it. Cast sweets into its cups whenever you can.

Love is the grand primaeval cause of man. All hate is foreign to the first great plan.

Love much. Your heart will be led out on altars ......

Love on, it is bread upon the water, it shall  be cast in loaves yet at your feet.

Love much. Your faith will be dethroned and shaken

Let new trusts awaken, though clouds obscure them, yet the stars are pure.

Love is a vital force and must endure.

Love much. Shine on people with warm love, and they expand.

Tis love, not creeds, that from a low  condition leads mankind

up to heights supreme and grand.

Oh that the world could see and understand!

Love much. There is no waste  in freely giving.

More blessed is it, even, than to receive.

You who loves much alone finds life worth living.

Love on. Through doubt and darkness, and believe.

There is no thing which Love may not achieve.

"The promise of Spring's arrival is enough to get anyone through the bitter winter.." -Jen Selinsky

Photographs 2021
 

ALL is NEW AGAIN

Spring means the Cat Plant, the ORIGINAL Cat Plant has started to bloom. He blooms and thrives in the dirt. In his pot. 

All is new again...

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?" "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine." -F. H. Burnett. (The Secret Garden)

I remember spring. Long ago it meant a crisp new Easter dress and black shiny shoes with lace socks. Yuck. 

It meant mud puddles and wearing that new Easter dress to smack around in the mud. 

Smack! Smack! Rain and mud falling everywhere. Loads of fun.

My father had passed away in the spring. In March. I had been given this new dress. I hated it. It was all ruffles with ribbons and bows. Yuck.

My mother made it. She started it before he died. It took her ages to finish it later.  

White lace with pink bows. Double yuck. Smack! Smack! The mud flew.

"Spring is here and my old joy blooms in the world." -Steve Scafidi

She sewed that dress  in the wee hours. All tucked and hand stitched. While she waited for news about him.  And it came.

And when he was gone, she was very brave and faced the world.

And made me wear that awful dress. It  made noises as I walked. Scruffle Scruffle it went. Scritch Scritch.

"Life is a mountain. Your goal is to find your path. Not to reach the top." -Maxine Legace

When my mother saw me..... Covered in mud. The new dress looking forlorn....

She didn't say much. She was very quiet. She shook her head and sighed. She took me by the hand and led me inside. 

Later she took me out to buy a new dress. One that didn't go Scritch Scritch or Scruffle Scruffle. The one she had made vanished into thin air.

Twenty some odd years later, my mother passed away, the same day in the spring  as my dad. I found that once new dress . In a box. In her closet. It looked clean and crisp. Like new. Like it did the one spring day I wore it.

That day of mud and rain . That day in the spring. When all was  new again.... 

“Everything is made new in the spring. Springs themselves are always so new, too. No spring is ever just like any other spring. It always has something of its own to be its peculiar sweetness.”― L.M. Montgomery

Sweet Simon

Photographs 2021