Spring Is Here

When I lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I lived in this adorable dutch colonial house in a neighborhood called Ardmore across from a city park.  In the Spring, the park was ablaze with color when the Forsythia shrubs that surrounded the small park bloomed.  I would run over and cut armfuls of the shrub and have vases of them all over the house.  It was like this enormous announcement that Spring was finally here. Forsythia, azalea, quince, rose of sharon, red bud, tulip magnolia, camellia and magnolias blooming everywhere.  When I moved into my apartment in Greenwich Village in New York after leaving North Carolina where I had lived for 11 years - I missed the spring so much and access to all of the abundance of flowering shrubs and trees at your fingertips - I ran out and bought a huge vase of Forsythia because I missed it so much.  When we built the house upstate, I wanted to make sure that we would have plenty of the shrub and planted 40 bushes on the east side of the house running the length of the house.  It could go wild there and that is what I wanted.  40 bushes is a lot but it has taken forever to grow.  Unlike North Carolina where it grows like Kudzu, it has really taken it's time.  The worst part is that we are never here when it finally blooms.  We either are in the city or traveling for work or have some reason not to be here.  However, finally, I am here at the house and it bloomed this week.  Armfuls of it.  I filled my first vase and put it in the living room.  It's a good sign that maybe this will be a good summer. Regardless, it brings back memories of so many happy springs in other places and so glad spring is finally here.