Friday Ramble - Patience

As I started off on the Friday ramble this week, the word that came to mind was patience, although I have already written a ramble on that word.

This week's offering has its roots in the Middle English pacient, the Middle French patient and the Latin word pati, all meaning to undergo something, to get through, or put up with something and do it with grace and dignity - no whining, screaming or going completely off one's nut. It's a fine old word, but it's not a word for wimps and sissies. True patience is fierce stuff, and it is anything but limp, indecisive or docile. Sometimes, it requires serious attitude, bags of forbearance and not a little cussing.

By now, the north should be carpeted in wildflowers, but a storm this week brought subzero temperatures, snow and bitterly cold winds, and the white stuff is staying around, at least for now. There will be no blooming in the woodland for a week or two, and there are times when I think springtime will never come.

What is one to do??? I pick up my camera, sometimes my notebook and pen, brew a pot of tea, pummel bread, stir up fiery curries, go walkabout with Beau, curl up in my favorite chair with a good book. I just breathe, in and out, in and out, in and out.

For some reason, the exquisite keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and the Bach preludes tuck everything back into place, and so does anything by Antonio Vivaldi. In recent weeks I have also been listening to the creations of Corelli, Gabrieli and Purcell. When my spirits need a lift, I always seem to go for baroque.

Snow or no snow, we wrap up and head out, look at the sun rising or setting somewhere, watch frozen cattails rattling their bones along the shore of the river. We listen to the wind in the bare trees, lean against fences and watch last autumn's desiccated leaves whirl through the air like confetti. We cling to the fragile hope that the snow will disappear and springtime will show up any day now.

This morning's image is a bloodroot bloom from last year's wanderings around this time. In early spring, they are the first wildflowers emerge from the earth and dead leaves of my favorite place, and they glow like little suns in the woods. Colonies of sanguinaria canadensis always leave me breathless when I encounter them, and I am looking forward to seeing them again. Until then, I cultivate patience and remember.