The Brutal Assassination of Daffodils
What is Mother Nature trying to tell me?
In the town in which I live on the Great Plains of Turtle Island winter refuses to go away. Just a couple of days ago our town recorded a low temperature of ONE degree above zero (Fahrenheit). IN APRIL! IN APRIL! That shattered the all-time record low temperature ever recorded in the month of April by 13 degrees!
A block away from where I live there is a little ornamental plum tree that just four days ago was in full bloom, its delightful pink blossoms a calling forth of life after a particularly brutal winter. A half-block in the opposite direction was a small bed of daffodils that have been blooming now for almost a week (around two weeks later than normal).
Not only did it get down to ONE degree above zero three days ago but we also received three inches of snow on that day. IN APRIL! It was our third snowstorm so far this month!
Today I walked past that flowering plum tree and there was not a glimmer of pink left on it. All the blossoms had been frozen and they were now shriveled up and were a light shade of gray. The daffodils were all bent to the ground, frozen, and shriveled in a state of yellowish-gray.
Spring was just finally starting to make its presence known and Mother Nature came along and slit its throat. Mother Nature brutally killed every sign of spring that had sprung forth.
Now, the town in which I live on the Great Plains of Turtle Island looks exactly like it did back in the middle of February, in the middle of winter.
April happens to be one of my favorite months. It is not just because it is the month when nature reawakens from the hideous cold of winter but it is also because I was born in the month of April and therefore have always had an affinity for that glorious month. It’s my month, goddamit!
But there is something else about April. In three days (on April 11th) I will be celebrating an anniversary. That date is the day I first arrived in this godforsaken town on the Great Plains of Turtle Island in which (on that day) I will have been living for SEVEN years!
When I first arrived here I told myself, “Okay, I’ll stay here for a year — two max.” In three days it will be SEVEN freaking years! Somehow I got stuck here!
SEVEN years is a cycle of time that is a little scary to me. Only two times in my life have I ever lived in one place for more than seven years. I lived in Colorado for 18 mostly glorious years (the longest I’ve ever lived in one place) and I lived in Texas intermittently for almost 9 years. And I’ve lived in a hundred other places for stretches of time that were always far short of SEVEN years.
It scares the shit out of me to think that I will live here much longer. This is not where I wanted to be. It certainly is not where I want to spend the rest of my life. It was only through a bizarrely undesired set of circumstances that I even ended up here. This is one of the last places I ever wanted to be.
And now I’ve been here for SEVEN freaking years!
So what the heck is Mother Nature trying to tell me at this potentially pivotal time in my life? Is the brutal assassination of daffodils and flowering trees a sign of the disruption of the time cycles of my life? Is a potentially new springtime in my life not going to happen as long as I am here? Is it time to move somewhere where Spring still means what it has always meant to me? Is it time for me to continue my journey to the land of blooming daffodils and ornamental trees? Is it time for me to finally let go of a very long winter in my life? Is Mother Nature trying to kick me in the ass to get me moving again?
When I first arrived here seven years ago the trees were turning green, the daffodils were already done blooming, the lilacs were about to bloom, the air smelled of new growth, and the tulips and hyacinths had already peaked.
This year, at the same time of year, the tulips and hyacinths haven’t even begun to bloom yet. The daffodils and flowering trees were wiped out by the lingering wrath of winter, and there is not a hint of green anywhere. It looks like February!
Is Mother Nature trying to teach me patience or is it trying to get me to move by violently kicking me in the ass?
Does a season of springtime always come naturally or, in our sedentary comfort zone, do we have a part to play in kick-starting movement in new directions? What action can we take to keep the ball rolling? Do we experience springtime passively or do we personally initiate new seasons in our lives? Do we bitch about the weather or do we take matters into our own hands?
Is this what Mother Nature is trying to tell me? Or is this what I am trying to tell myself? Either way, it is time for me to start listening.
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.
A recent, somewhat related story of mine: