Searching for daffodils

 

Photo by Kavita Joshi Rai on Unsplash

Recently, I dealt with a bad bout of depression. I think it had a lot to do with the weather; it was wet, cold, cloudy, and gray. 

This week, I went to my doctor for my annual checkup, and she told me that she’d seen a daffodil in her front yard. 

I thought, “Daffodils? Cool!”

In Atlanta, where I live, the first harbingers of spring are daffodils, cherry trees, and forsythia. I start expecting daffodils around the end of February. So when I heard that my doctor had seen a daffodil in her yard, I decided it was time to start looking. 

On the way home, I glanced at a grouping of flowers at the base of a mailbox. Sure enough, they were daffodils! 

I’m smart enough to know that daffodils will not cure my depression. I take my meds and check in regularly with my counselor and psychiatrist. I also have a group of friends I confide in. 

But knowing that spring will come, knowing that the seasons will follow in order, and seeing those signs of each season coming — it helps. 

Next month will mark two years since the pandemic really hit for me. I date the beginning of the pandemic from March 13, 2020, when our governor declared a state of emergency and everything started shutting down. It was the day I took both my son and myself for haircuts and then went to Kroger. 

During those first few days, I walked in a park and I reminded myself, “Spring will come. Spring always comes. Even in a pandemic, spring will come.”

Today I am enjoying temperatures in the 60’s. By Sunday, we may have snow showers. Winter has not left us yet. Daffodils are only the first shots in the war on winter. 

But, even in the middle of a pandemic, even in the middle of a bout of depression, spring comes. 

This is why I go searching for daffodils in February. 

And why I always find them. 

Because they remind me that spring is coming. 

Like it always does.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

 

Springtime in Atlanta

Springtime in Atlanta arrives in clumps of pink and white.

The cherry trees, with their pink blossoms, bloom first.  They are closely followed by the yellow of the daffodils and the forsythia bushes.

This is the time of year when winter and spring commence their annual dance, fighting over which season will dominate.  First spring pokes up a tentative head, usually with the cherry trees and the daffodils.  Winter roars back with dropping temperatures and the occasional attacks of frost and maybe a snowflake or two, enough to send metro Atlanta into panic.

Then winter dies down, and spring again pokes up its head.  It adds the white blossoms of the Bradford pear trees, followed a little while later by the lavender of the wisteria.

At this point, winter has a choice to make.  Does it make one last stand, or does it wave the white flag of surrender?

Sometimes, winter fights back.  I remember one week at the beginning of April when I thought the white stuff in the air was white blossoms from the Bradford pears.  It wasn't until I got out of the car and saw the "blossoms" melting on my coat that I realized they were snowflakes.

Eventually, though, winter must wave the flag of surrender.  Spring marches in, in shades of pink and yellow, lavender and white.  It's also accompanied by the greenish-yellow of pine pollen, which drives Atlantans to the car washes, to wash the pollen into the storm drains; to the drug stores, to buy decongestants by the boxful; and in some cases, to the doctor's office, where allergy medicines are prescribed.  The daily pollen count becomes a temporary staple of the weather report, along with WSB's Kirk Mellish's recitation of the pollen sources: "oak, cedar, grass, pine, ketchup, and mustard".

Such is the changing of the seasons in Atlanta, Georgia.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.