Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Hope Springs Eternal


There are new eyes looking out of Florence's windows. I mentioned that when I was a kid, the trees in the park below always let me know when Spring was coming. The tenant wrote back that she knew Spring was coming by how many more people were walking across the bridge. Oh, have times changed. When we all lived there, no one walked across that bridge.

The trees outside the windows I have lived in for the past 34 years never really tell me anything until it's summer and much too late to get excited. So the heralding of Spring has instead become that roller coaster of volatile weather - hot! cold! warm! cold again!

A chilly walk on 103rd Street the other day changed all that when I saw something I hadn't seen since I was a kid.

Flowers. At least what passed for flowers on the Lower East Side. Spring.

5 comments:

cityofstrangers said...

CO - Flowers. Rain. Sun. Hot sun. More rain. Torrential rain. More hot sun. That's spring now I guess . . .

But I always feel the return of hope with the first greening of the trees, the return of flowers. The nature boy in me I guess . . . the first return of life after a long harsh Canadian winter.

No one walked over the bridge when you were a kid?

T.

Alana said...

I always associate trees blooming with spring and when the day gets a little lighter every day.

c.o. moed said...

the light... I always notice when it gets dark and people are still rushing about - a most evocative time .. but it takes a while for me to notice it's lighter...

and yes, barely... on Shabbos we'd see the Hasids walking from Williamsburg to the LES to shul and back. But last year I went across with Adrian and was shocked at how many people were there. It was like Central Park!

amy said...

Good stuff. I like the stark tone and really concrete observations.

c.o. moed said...

thanks for visiting, Amy. When I read your comment I thought you were talking about the bricks in the background and I realized that concrete/brick/ metal were all contexts that I see "nature" in...