a good year for flowers

 My kids groaned every time I pointed out a clump of Star-of-Bethlehem, which grows profusely all over our neighborhood.  To be fair, I pointed it out every time I saw a patch; it had to be annoying.  They'll never forget it, though, the way the stems stand erect, topped with the delicate frosty flowers.  Star-of-Bethlehem means early May here.  I've added it to our calendar of firsts, and I'll know to look for it next year.  (The ones in the bud vase are from our backyard, picked by our littlest flower-enthusiast.  We're teaching her to look but not pick, with varying degrees of success.)

All the flowers this spring are more-so.  Right now it's the peonies, bent headlong over their leaves, pink and white and blush.  The dogwoods still look as though the branches are covered in snowy drifts, and, where the world isn't brightly colored with irises and rhododendron blossoms, it's gloriously, voluminously verdant.  I had forgotten just how green the world can be.

"The tendency to magnify petty difficulties, to consider one's special problems impossible of solution, might be conquered, I believe, nine times out of ten, could we get out of doors and turn our attention to the impersonal but absorbing problems ready to present themselves to the open-eyed pedestrian.  It is not possible always to run away from the routine of every-day life, but it is possible often when we fail to do it.  The chances are that the thing we are striving to accomplish is not half so important or so inspiring as the thing that is crowded out."

                                                   
                                                                According to Season: A Celebration of Nature 
                                                                                            Mrs. William Starr Dana