Ahh, springtime has arrived in the Center of the Universe!
The dogwood trees in Newberry are smiling pink and white, the purple wisteria is fragrant sweet, the early roses are blushing to scarlet-and yellow dandelions are popping up everywhere.
In the springtime, Newberry shows her colors. She dresses up in her finest satin, she adorns herself with her sparkliest jewels, and she puts on make-up that she doesn't really need. Oh, what a beauty she is!
I'd like to take a moment here to express my gratitude. My thanks to all who plant and prune so that others of us may enjoy the show. My thanks, too, to He from Whom all blessings-and rain-flow. My thanks, as well, to those who came before and planted the trees that now frame the flowers. Great show, y'all!
Yes, Newberry in the springtime is a wonder to behold-and wonders often set my mind to pondering. Every now and again, I will see something or hear something or smell something that brings to mind a question.
Sometimes, the questions have answers. Sometimes, not.
With your indulgence, I'd like to share with you a few of my ponderings from this spring.
1. Mrs. Jane Ragland was one of the many moms with whom my mother car-pooled when my brothers and my sister and I were in school. One spring morning, she taught us this verse of good humor but bad grammar: “Spring is sprung, the grass is ‘riz. I wonder where the birdies is?”
This year, I know the answer. The birdies are in the bird bath in my backyard, perching on the chairs in my backyard, singing from the deck in my backyard-and they're leaving behind plenty evidence thereof.
All in all, though, it didn't take but five seconds of pondering to decide: the clean-up is a small price to pay for the beauty of the songs, for the magic of sunlight on a fluttering wing, for the pure joy of hearing baby birds chirp from a nest in the sweet shrub.
Sweet spring, sweet birdies. All are welcome here.
2. The fish pond in the backyard was built in the late 1930s, we think. We have a picture of Henry's mom when she was maybe 14, smiling in front of a rocky waterfall with a bed of iris behind her. Sweet Mary was quite the beauty, and the pond was beautiful, too.
When we moved, Henry decided that he wanted to restore the pond to the beauty it was in the photograph of his mother.
The concrete was patched to hold water again, I collected rocks for the waterfall, and the ever-generous LuLynn Sexton gave us old-fashioned bearded iris to replace those that had died. Andy Hawkins’ cousin, Michael Haigler, contributed several water plants, I bought three water lilies, and at last, we added the fish.
One spring evening, we heard a sound from the pond that was definitely not rocks, not iris, not lilies, not fish.
The croaking of a frog.
In my surprise, I set to pondering: how did a water frog arrive here in the city? Please do not misunderstand, I was not opposed to a frog living in the pond. Hurray, frogs eat mosquitoes. Hurray, the croaking is not noise, but music to my ears (it reminds me of my childhood on Pa-pa's farm, of falling to sleep in a feather bed).
And no, the idea of tadpoles was no problem. When I was maybe 10 and the pond at Pa-pa's house was reduced to mud, my brothers and my sister and I mounted a two-day mission to rescue the li'l critters. We poured them into Scott's Creek from tin buckets, shouting with excitement.
My pondering was simply this: how did a frog know we'd set up the pond again? There was no croaking of y’all come, the pond had not been operational for many years, and frogs do not use the Internet.
All through the summer, we had fun with the frog. He would hop into the pond as we approached, and then we’d search (a la Where's Waldo) to find two eyes bobbing up from the water.
In the fall, our lone frog died. Because he'd left no tadpoles behind, I figured we'd lost our pond frog for good.
Not so. In early March of this year, we heard croaking again.
Yep, another frog has taken up residence in the pond. A big one.
Again, I pondered: how did a frog know to show up here?
Despite all the pondering, I have no clue.
Even so, from my kitchen window at sunset, the croaking whispers a dusky song of my childhood--a song that never fails to make me smile.
It is a song that is most welcome here.
3. My final springtime ponder is a grievous one. As some of you may remember, last year I wrote a column about my grandmother's Dorothy Perkins rose. When Henry and I were newly married (35 years ago), I transplanted Miss Dorothy from the homeplace to our house in Cayce. From there, I moved her to Newberry, from Johnstone Street to College Street to Main Street. At the time, I was hoping that she would live.
Yes, in early spring the rose looked entirely healthy, and she had buds aplenty-buds that I expected to bloom in double-petals of pink.
Surprise, surprise...
The rose petals are single and white, not at all what I was expecting. So it is, that I am left to ponder. Is Miss Dorothy a hybrid who's returned to her roots? Does she not like living on Main Street? Surely, I did not transplant the wrong rose. She bloomed at the back door of College Street long enough for me know her well.
In my pondering about Miss Dorothy, I have stumbled upon a few meandering, random thoughts.
Could it be...
The older we are, the more likely we are to return to our childhood memories. Perhaps, Miss Dorothy's roots yearned to return to the rambling white simplicity of who she was before she was tamed and named?
The older we are, the harder the move. Perhaps, Miss Dorothy was simply too stressed to bloom double-pink this year? Maybe the next??
The older we are, the more likely we are to be comfortable with who we are. Perhaps, we come to a point where we can say out loud: we’re not as pretty or as precocious as we once were, but we can still bloom where we planted.
Whatever our age, wherever we are planted, we still have a bit of sweetness to share with the evening breeze.
If Miss Dorothy never blooms pink again, she is still a celebration of life and of springtime.
She is welcome here.
Whatever your age and wherever you are planted, I hope that your springtime is magical. Take a deep, deep breath and enjoy the wisteria. Open your eyes wide, and enjoy the colors of pink dogwood and crimson roses. Open your ears, and smile at the music of birds singing and frogs croaking.
In the springtime, Newberry shows her colors. She dresses up in her finest satin, she adorns herself with her sparkliest jewels, and she puts on make-up that she doesn't really need. Oh, what a beauty she is!
Yes, springtime has arrived here in the Center of the Universe. All is well, and all are welcome.
What a wonder it is, to live in the Center of the Universe.
Ponder that. It is something worth pondering, something worth celebrating, something worth being grateful for.
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