Spring’s Thin Soil

You cannot grow fine flowers in thin soil. Virginia Wolf

My soil feels very thin these days, dry and crumbly to the touch. I blame Aries season, lunar activity, this ridiculous transition between winter and spring, with all of its fitful starts and stops, balmy sunny days, and freezing, windywet mornings.

Anger is the emotion of spring, but today I feel a little despairing. Damp and cold, drained of the relentless optimism that will flood my being in another month or two.

Being human is difficult. Being alive in the world is hard. When I was a teacher in another lifetime, my students and I would make up words. Those two statements fall under the category of minerbole (rhymes with and is the opposite of hyperbole) — understatement for effect.

These feelings will pass, as all feelings do, and this morning, a small, red cardinal pips his song in the mulberry tree that is now budding in my backyard. His mate pips back from a cherry tree farther down the alley, and the sky is lightening through the clouds. Weather as a metaphor, hopefully.