'Round the Bend

It's been another month since I posted, so I am compelled to check in here, if just briefly, at CC. The phrase "around the bend" has come to mind a lot in the last few days. It has both an optimistic tone - the future, better luck, a new day, etc. awaits just "around the bend" - as well as a far more ominous one - she's gone 'round the bend, lost it, is totally wackadoodle, etc. I've been feeling a little of both sentiments lately.

Yes, the future, inevitably, is just around the bend. I think that's probably a good thing since staying stuck in this day, this week, this month, with the ceaseless winter barrage of snow, sleet, rain, ice that has assualted us here in the upstate New York region of the Northeast for the past two-plus months, is not a particularly appealing option. Oh, please, let's move on, shall we?

That said, enduring Mother Nature's winter wardrobe has left me more in the latter camp of weather-induced insanity. I have felt literally snowbound and snow blind, with the land and the sky reflecting the very same shades of white and grey. Snow has accumulated in quantities I haven't seen since my childhood. It was fun back then. It is not now. Not at all. The latest downfalls have proven to be the worst kind - relentless and unbelievably heavy, laden with moisture that, under other circumstances (read: warmer temperatures), would have been pure rain. But it wasn't rain - it was very heavy, wet snow, burdening everything in its path and requiring some Herculean, repeated efforts at shoveling it out of the way. Only the trees, shrubs, buildings, and the board fences (and the buried silhouette of my car), have provided a contrast to the visual monotony of the scene, and they're all fairly heavily snow-covered, too. Enough, I say. It must stop!

To combat the doldrums this environment presents, I made a conscious effort to provide some warm colors inside the house and, fortunately, I've tricked a few unsuspecting annuals into thinking that, even though they're indoors in pots and not out on the sun-filled deck or in the planters next to the house, Spring is nearly here. I've got a big pot of bright coral geraniums sporting five - count them, five! - fully formed flowers, along with one brilliant magenta petunia flower punctuating the drabness of the exterior landscape.

These lovely flowers are like little beacons of the season to come, fragile, fleeting reminders that after the darkness (or, in our case, the eternal whiteness), there is, in fact, new life ahead. I totally faked them out, along with a tiny part of the deep recesses of my brain that needs some assurance that warmer, sunnier days are, indeed, just around that literal and theoretical bend.