The Time of Your Life

Last week, I awoke one morning to find a sea of yellow had flooded my beautiful western North Carolina home—the daffodils were blooming. It was just about this time of year when we first moved here (after Hurricane Katrina chased us—husband Chip and me, along with various animals—from the Gulf Coast), and I couldn’t believe the splendor of both the mountains and the daffodils. The mountains are devastatingly beautiful. Daffodils are everywhere. They grow wild in fields and by the side of the road, and there are mass plantings on dividers and in various public places. 

Chip and I happen to love daffodils. Our mutual love of this particular plant was one of the first things we discovered about each other. When we lived in Louisiana and Mississippi, he planted dozens in our gardens. We now have a small farm in WNC, and he’s supplemented the daffodil population with hundreds more. We have naturalized patches here and there, as well as the bulbs he planted, and the few dozen more that I have in a few of my gardens.

Today when I went out, I found that the Bradford pear trees have exploded into clouds of white flowers. Bradford pears are plentiful here, and journeys from any one place to any other is certain to include views of these lovely trees in various stages of maturity. Does anything compare? Yes, the flowering cherry trees which have also decided it’s time to put winter behind, and show off their pretty pink blossoms.

Our forsythia, that only four days ago were beginning to bud, are now in full bloom. Ours are young, but there are many mature forsythia in this area and it is a joy to see these massive collections of bright yellow blooms. A peach tree I planted a few years ago is also abundantly in bloom—another beauty to behold. Many people visit this area in the fall to see the leaves as they turn color; I’m sorry they don’t see the spring show, as well.

It rained all day today, and yet the long drive to the bank and grocer’s was bright and beautiful, illuminated not by the sun, but by bursts of yellow, pink, and white along the country roads and highways. How blessed I am to be surrounded by such beauty, and to have the faculties to appreciate it. 

This is spring, the dazzling extravaganza before the summer green. While we apprehensively anticipate a late, last frost, we hopefully try to convince ourselves there won’t be one this year. And we wait, for spring is still young and anything can happen before May’s final breeze.

Are you in a beautiful place? Do you see the brilliant exhibition that surrounds you? Perhaps it’s not daffodils and Bradford pears, but handsome architecture and historic buildings or suburban neighborhoods filled with the squeals of children joyously coming out of hibernation after the long, cold winter. How lucky you are to see a flower blooming in the crack of a sidewalk or a shimmering rainbow; bright fluffy clouds in an ocean of blue on a sunny day or heavy black ones—filled with rain—against a gray-blue sky. And when the world seems particularly ugly, as it does now and again, aren’t we fortunate to be ever able to find something lovely…somewhere…