Patience Has Never Been My Finest Virtue.

Oh the WAITING.

Still waiting for Springtime. She seems uninterested in descending upon New England. And that leaves us Spring-Is-In-Our-Blood types feeling conflicted and off-balance.

Damn all this snow that refuses to melt. Shoo! Away with you!

Be Gone!!

Despite their inherent preciousness, one does not survive on the social interaction of 4-year-olds alone.

This pre-school teacher is in need of warmer weather, venture-int0-the-night weather. Honestly, sometimes a girl just wants to feel like a girl, to exercise her Come-Hither eyes and make sure they work after all that hibernation.

Besides, how am I supposed to dance in the pouring rain if I have to worry about pneumonia?

So come on, Spring. Rear your glorious head and send me some sunshine, some budding blooms, a chance to pack away the winter coat and wear open-toed shoes. Is it so much to ask?

If you don't come soon, I'm going to set out to find you elsewhere...

Longing for Shakespeare's Spring.

It's snowing, and the tulips on Pearl street haven't any wool coats to keep them warm.

Being absolutely opposed to venturing outside, I have curled up beneath some down, and will instead take comfort in the dream

of true Spring.

"O, how this spring of love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day;

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

And by and by a cloud takes all away."

-The Bard, Two Gentlemen of Verona

I found these images over at Dustjacket Attic. This one puts me in the mind of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and all that wandering about in the gardens, overhearing things.

"If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stelaing and giving odour!

-Twelfth Night

Sprung?

"In the Spring, I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours."

-Mark Twain

My friendlings, if Spring in Philadelphia is an old miser grumbling all the way to the mailbox in slippers and in slush, who happens to spot an unassuming crocus growing rogue upon his lawn and takes a brief moment to smile before surrendering to his overcast disposition once more,

if Spring in Atlanta is the aftermath of a giant pinata, smashed with thunderous storm blows, dispelling a stifling powdery yellow coating upon everything in its vicinity, to the screaming and joyeous delight of the bees and the angst of my watery-eyed mother,

then Spring in Boulder is a schizophrenic puppy dog, bounding with great enthusiasm through various elements and atmospheres, utterly unable to decide which toy is best to play with.

There was snow on the ground yesterday morning. Today the wind blows freezing, but the sun shines warm. The trees are budding outside my bedroom window.

(This is a good sign, seeing as everyone knows that the trees know best when Spring is truly to come. Damn the camera-shy groundhog. When was the last time he didn't see his shadow?) The magic MacWeatherButton promises rising highs through the weekend, with a grand culmination around the brilliant 72 degrees Fahrenheit. O blessed, blessed promise.

This is the time of year that I remember that though I've strayed far from the Old Red Hills, inside my chest beats the heart of Southern Belle and a Steel Magnolia. After March is over, the coldest thing I want in my life is a mint julep.

My blood tells me it's time to start finding a derby hat that would do Eliza proud,

start frying up the green tomatoes,

start sitting on the deck at every possible moment and stock up on Vitamin D, start siphoning heroine novellas into my "Best Novels Ever Written" reading list (one cannot be expected to read Under the Volcano while basking in the sun. That sort of atmosphere is made for guilty pleasures).

And then there are the inclinations that pulse deeper than just the blood. The grand promise of Spring. I'm ready.

"Out with the cold, in with the woo."

-E. Marshall, "Spring Thought"

photos: by Snowflakeskiss from tumblr, Gloriosity LCT Delaware Valley 2008, by Lonely Pierot from Deviantart, from Bedifferentactnormal.blogspot, Puppy from tumblr, by Chrrristine from flickr, Girl in Window from pixdaus.com, mint julep from urbzen.files.wordpress, My Fair Lady image from CaneNews.com, fried green tomato tower from food.tv, What, no machine guns? from bighappyfunhouse.com, Always by _kittysyellowjacket from deviantART.