Friday Ramble - Seeing Red

Beyond the window is an ocean of white that goes on forever and ever. Weary of ice and snow, I have been longing to have my morning cuppa out on the deck, but I know I will not be doing that for quite a while. The best I can do is stand inside the doors with my mug and look out wistfully. At the rate we are going, we may not even see the garden before the end of April. A little bright color right about now would be grand, and it is certainly appreciated  when it turns up.

While pottering about in a small local market this week, a tin bucket of tulips caught my eye, and I scooped up a bunch in assorted colors, carrying them home as tenderly as if they were fledgling birds. The whites, pinks, purples, oranges and yellows were fine stuff, but the scarlets were nothing short of amazing - attention grabbers of the first order. My find was a whole bucket full of gladness and then some.

In an old glass vase (a flea market find), the velvety petals and bright green leaves don't merely light up the day - they light up just about everything else around here too. One would be enough, but a whole bouquet is almost indecently sumptuous. What a way to summon springtime, even if the blooming is only in my thoughts. The tulips are a small magic that lifts the spirits, conjures gladness and makes the gnarly bringer of blooms feel like doing the tango with a tulip between her teeth. 

From now until spring, there has to be a pot, a crock, a bucket, a vase or a tankard of something flowering near the south facing window. I think about how beautiful a single garden rose will look there when summer comes, and it seems to me that such thoughts are not just about a vase of tulips or a single rose, but about all the boundless gardens of the earth coming into riotous, intoxicating bloom.