Rites of Spring

I have not been on hiatus. I have been in the throes of Spring which include Visiting Spring, Planning Spring, and Starting Spring. First, I spent seven days in Portland, Oregon being amazed by my Princess Granddaughter and two incredible botanical gardens. I visited Spring. Just the act of walking from 78th to 67th Street drew my eye to Spring in a place of similar latitude but such dissimilar climate. Both locations (Portland and Deer Isle) hover around 44 North. But yard after yard, garden after garden, every blossom proclaimed that frost is very old news. Oregon ain't Maine.

Under the guise of buying vegetable seeds with my daughter for her raised beds, I purchased the seeds of Phacelia campanularia, Cobaea scandens and Agastache rupetris. Bring on the birds, bees and hummingbirds.  The cubby of my desk is stuffed full with seed packets and my notebook ponders on. "Is there a place and reason for a Dutchman's Pipe???" This is how I plan Spring.

Returning from the blossoms in the Pacific Northwest to my brown and basically frozen world was not easy. The calendar is the bulwark of my being, April inches me closer to May. Reading the seed packet words "When to sow inside: 6-8 weeks before average late frost" sends me into a frenzy. I postponed my indoor planting in order to avoid seedlings that would dare to appear when I was not watching. But now I ask myself: exactly when is my last frost? Am I late from start to finish already? I began my truest rite of spring. I wet the soil medium. I tore open a packet of portulaca and devised the best way of planting such dust-like seeds. I marveled when the fourth pack of portulaca types revealed pelleted seeds. I started Spring in my kitchen in the same manner I have for thirty years.

I stare at wet dirt and wait. This is the best miracle of all.