Mrs. Bluebird

Mrs. Bluebird / Oil on black canvas / 5x5 unframed / $68 includes shipping

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IN THE YARD, the lilac bush is just about to bloom. Already, its aroma scents the air, catapulting me back to childhood, and springtime in New London, Connecticut, and the lilac bush in our front yard. 

I think it was three bushes, actually - a stand of lilacs - which my mother pruned annually, until they were graceful and willowy, the blooms fairly high, the bases of the bushes mostly branchless. 

That's how I remember them, anyways, though that does conflict with another memory - my brother and I being allowed to take our dinner of stuffed peppers out into the yard, so that we could sneak around behind the lilac bushes and hide the hideous, fleshy stuffed peppers there. I'd rather go hungry than eat them - then, and now. 

At any rate, here in Wachapreague, the lilacs will bloom tomorrow or the next day, and I will set up in the back yard and paint them. I will cut the blooms off and put them all over the house, and for days or a week, or however long the magic lasts, I will rejoice in this deepest, sweetest, most tender taste of spring. And I will watch for the bluebirds.

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Gratitude

Today, I am grateful, so grateful for the sunshine. The day was cold, the wind was cold, but the sun was out, and lifted my heart and spirits. 

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For Today

"The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song."

- John Burroughs, naturalist