weather report

I'm pretty much the only one in my family without a green thumb. Dad came from credentialed gardening stock, and dutifully (and maybe also passionately) tended our enormous vegetable garden that kept the whole neighborhood in zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, and snap peas. Mom and sis handled the flowers, tenderly coaxing them out of reticent bulbs, glorying in the first shoots.

I mowed the lawn.

But I inherited at least a few of those earthy genes-- the ones that make me stare in open-mouthed wonder at the world coming to life around me: those dull winter branches suddenly, intensely gettin' their chlorophyll on; cardinals clashing gloriously as they chase each other through fuschia-tipped branches; the swan song of the used-up tulips opening their little arms wide to welcome the second wave of spring.

Most of the lawns I pass are well-manicured, orderly, satisfying. But secretly I'm cheering on the wild ones with minds of their own, sending out curious fingers in every direction and yielding to the wind.

Easter came too early this year. This is resurrection weather!