We have had a slow start to our spring this year in Ontario, Canada. Snow mid-April was not a happy surprise and put me back from planting vegetables. There is no question it’s here now and in my opinion in absolutely wonderful and abundant bloom.
The early morning dews bring up a smell, slightly earthy, the smell of wet soil, moss, young pine sprouts. It is revitalizing, awakening and the days’ heat slowly creeps unlike in summer where the gust of suffocating humidity is sometimes instantaneous. You step out into the sun, bright and warming and you are overcome by the smell of lilacs and sweet grasses. Soon the peonies will bloom. These are the smells that only the spring can bring. Everything has come back to life, the world is no longer still. Every moment is spent in slow development, changing ever so slightly.
The sound of the gentle wind plays through your ears, trees never look as beautiful, alive and as wonderfully green as they do in spring. Their leaves are soft and they twirl in a much different way then they will in a month’s time. I always get a sense of euphoria in the spring — truthfully I am often overcome by euphoria, but not the same way as it gets me in spring.
All the prospects are laid out in those few weeks. Will there be an abundance of herbs, nuts, berries, cherries? Absolutely yes! The cold of the winter no longer matters, as long as I can fill my tummy with oodles of berries this summer.
So now I sit, in the sun, in the grass with my books or with my eyes on the clouds and enjoy what each day seems to bring. Summer will come soon and the smells will change, and although a vile of lilac oil may smell as sweet, it is nothing compared to the real thing.
