Beauty

The other night we closed the windows of our house and I actually wore socks to bed. Snowflake socks. The days are still warm but we’ve been greeted with a fine layer of frost on our windshields on more than one occasion in the past week. The sunsets are coming earlier and the night air has lost its heavy stillness. The leaves on some of the more overanxious trees are already starting to change. It seems, sadly, that yet another summer has slipped through our fingers. My pleas for a couple more weeks (We never made it to Boston! We never had a chance to camp at the beach! There are more games of beer pong to be played at Alison’s lake house! ) seem to have fallen on Mother Nature’s deaf ears. Soon, sightseers from all over will descend upon our highways and scenic routes to view the beauty of the changing leaves. Yeah, I’ll admit that the changing leaves are beautiful (if not a bit dated… gold, orange and red? The seventies called and they want their color scheme back…) and raking the crackling fallen leaves on a brisk Saturday afternoon is marginally more fun than weeding flower beds in 90-degree heat. But for all of the beauty that comes with Fall, I can’t help but let my pessimistic side remind me that once the crisp refreshment of October is lost in the grey filter of November* those bare tree branches mean that it will be months until we feel the warmth of the Summer sun again. It will be months until we see live, green grass (or any grass at all) and months until we dare venture outside without multiple layers of heavy clothes. Winter is not my favorite season.

While I’m all for enjoying the beauty of Fall, I much prefer the beauty of Spring. I prefer the pastels of the first spring blooms, the giddiness of a balmy afternoon and the optimism that comes when the landscape changes from brown to back to green.

I recently found these pictures that I took at Churchill Park in May on my hard drive. As you will see, I am a terrible photographer. Seriously, I should not even be allowed to operate a camera. I’m not going to pretend that these pictures are any good from a photography standpoint, but I think they accurately convey the beauty, the promise that comes with Spring.
Can anyone tell me what these cute little flowers are? They are about the size of my thumbnail and grow in clusters. I would love to have these all over my yard.

Not that you can tell by this picture, but the sky way really blue that day. I couldn't find the "really blue sky" setting on the camera, so this is the best I can do.

Look! It's an artsy, angled closeup of the tall grass! Never mind that I took this picture by accident when I was leaning over to tie my shoe!

*Don’t EVEN get me started on the month of November… that’s another blog post for another day.