April 27 2004, 07:04 PM Angrily, The Trees Shake

One of the more or less charming aspects of living here in this confluent place are the easily turnable out of ordered seasons. This works both ways: the beautiful indian summers are as charming as can be. As a counterexample, we may take yesterday, a day of cool sun and gentle warmth, a bath of promises of spring and greening and happy hot day followed on by today, with the crumpled fleeting grey of the clouds above and the threat of temperatures below thirty, and another round with the stiff mittens of horror the weather persons jovially call a 'wintery mix', right before their stern warnings about safety and care. They call for snow tonight. It is not surprising, really, to have bits of scant snow as late in the season as this in this place. It is just...poor. I am saddened a little that I have been on this earth enough years to be able to say, with this turn of the stars, that this year we have had enough of that with some authority. My fear tonight with the forecast for frost is for the apples.

The most telling difference between the spring of yesterday and the autumn of today is the sense that the earth is once again closing up shop. Hardwood burns in fireplaces, and the air that carries the smoke past is cold and wet. It all feels as if it is winding down again, the thick plumes of the flowering dogwoods and the forsythia were merely teases. They claim we should have our spring back by tomorrow, or Thursday.

For now, Sophie Ellis Bextor will do what she can to save us, if only by proxy.

Sandwiches last night were well-seasoned flank steak on bread smeared with a highly assertive Irish Blue cheese, along with the rest of the basil. That was pretty good.