I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that...I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden. ~ A. Crowley

We had a day of near-70-degree weather this past week and now another couple inches of snow is on the ground. I am more than ready for spring. Especially because I had to leave my sweet little garden behind when I moved last fall, I am eager to see vivid colors outside again. Today is blindingly bright here, which is a wonderful change of pace, with the sunshine making all the snow sparkle, and I'll bundle up this afternoon in the many winter layers I am so tired of wearing and go for a long walk, but I am longing to see my beloved Daffodils sprouting up in yards all over town, to notice Forsythias and countless trees when they first start to turn their spring yellow-green, to smell heavenly Lilac bushes again, to watch Roses' blooms uncoil, and to feel cool grass under my bare feet again. I had a crying jag Thursday afternoon after spotting bulbs' shoots sprouting up in a neighbor's backyard on my walk home from work. I wanted so badly to be living in her tiny little house--one of the only tiny houses in the neighborhood, as all the rest are 3-or-more-floor Victorians converted into apartments--and making plans for that little yard. I wanted her soon-blooming flowers and her trees and her small back porch and her lawn chair and her bird houses. . . . I am happy here and Life is good in so many ways, but I miss my garden and I ache for the dream home I have wanted for so long.

My mom sent me a little "fun money" tucked into a letter yesterday and I will use a bit of it today to treat myself to a flower and a gardening magazine. And between chores today, I will daydream about my little pink and white cottage garden that I miss so much, and I will work on my visions for my next one--even if "bloom[ing] where [I'm] planted" in this case finds me beautifying my fire escape.

♥

Storybook Blooms and Little Girl Rouge

Although I didn’t start gardening until I was twenty-seven, my interest in it was sparked as a kid both by my grandparents’ wonderland of a yard and by a book my Mom bought me when I was maybe five or six, The Care Bears’ Garden.  My grandmother, for all the many flowers she had, never had Hollyhocks or Foxgloves while I was growing up, so when I saw them in the book’s illustrations, I thought of them as magical storybook kind of flowers--much like the giggling posies in the Chuckle Patch on "The Magic Garden," one of my favorite childhood TV shows and probably another inspiration. I didn’t know the cute drawings were based on real flowers. Hollyhocks and Foxgloves still delight me. This week, my own Foxgloves began to bloom.

My so-far-favorite rose, Louise Odier, also opened up this week. When I was little, the neighborhood girls and I would rub onto our faces the fallen petals of our neighbor Gracie’s roses, feeling quite womanly as we did so, of course. I’m transported back to those summer moments spent crouched in front of Gracie’s plastic picket fence every time I smell this flower.




All in all, I'm a happy five-year-old while in my garden this week, even if I've stopped rouging my cheeks with rose petals.