Tag: Spring

🌲🌳🌴🎋Magic So Sublime 🌲🌳🌴🎋

“Do you see anything dramatically different today?” I quizzed the husband. He looked around him. We were standing outside the home before setting off on a walk. He looked blank, looked around, and then settled for his safe-bet. “Did you cut your hair? It looks good!”

I rolled my eyes. Honestly! 

“Nice try, but no!” Then, taking pity on him, I gave him a hint. “It is more to do with the immediate surroundings.”

He paused, looking up at the roof. Yesterday’s rains had us both rattled a bit. It isn’t often that we get up to the sounds of heavy rains lashing against our windows. It is a beautiful sensation, but a little fraught for us this time, since the last time, we found a pool of water had managed to seep in. This, after the roof repairman had stomped on the ceiling repairing things for sometime already. 

“Not the roof either! Look at the flora and fauna.” I said.

“Ahh – okay – that is easy.” Then went on to gabble on about flowers blooming, some plant surviving till I stopped his rambling, and said, “It is okay to give up, you know?”  

Then, with a dramatic flair, I pointed to the cherry blossom tree that only a day ago was fully white filled with blossoms. To be fair, I did not see it while it was raining. But one day later, it was there fully clothed in fresh green leaves – not traces of the tree in full bloom from just a day ago. 

How I wish the tree would tell us when it would do this? I would love to just set up a time-lapse video and sit watching it in slow rapture. When do you think the leaves actually sprout? Has anybody actually seen a leaf grow? This has to be some of the most sublime magic on the planet. 

🌸🌸🌸 Oubaitori in Spring Time 🌸🌸🌸

I felt a pang for the beautiful blooms of that tree – gone so quickly and completely, and then remembered that a month ago, it was bereft – a tree in abscission. Beautiful in its starkness, then resplendent in its white blossoms, and now lovely in its fresh greens. It is no wonder that cherry blossoms have captured the hearts and minds of philosophers for centuries – the simple lessons of enjoying the beauty of the moment, the oubaitori to bloom and sprout at your own pace.

Witnessing Nature: A Baby Egret’s Journey to Independence

 

No swimming No diving No fishing

The sign that greets the visitor to the riverside can be daunting. 

If one wonders why they never heard the whooshing sounds of the gushing river waters as they made their way up to the riverside, it is because there usually isn’t any. The mighty river retains its classification by becoming a river for about three days a year when there is heavy rainfall. Like a courtly princess who only dresses in regalia at Christmas.

The rest of the year, it trickles like a stream, while the major portion of the riverbed is lush with vegetation. It is the teeming home to plenty of wildlife – deer, blue herons, geese, coots, ducks, grebes, red tailed hawks, blackbirds, egrets, harriers, turkeys, turkey vultures, owls, wild cats, squirrels, rabbits, the occasional fox or coyote, possibly small snakes and fish in the simmering strip of waters. 

The trail by the riverside is, however, a charming place and one that always manages to lift your spirit. The stirrings of spring are in the air all around us, and we decided to go for a run / walk / bike / drive (No guesses for matching the family member with mode of transport ) to enjoy the river. Pale pink and white cherry blossoms on thick dark brown branches, clusters of chamomile in gardens, squirrels bustling up and down garden fences and hugging trees, geese squawking their way out in the world. It is a beautiful world and one that can ensure one forgets all the breaking news if only for the hour or so by the riverside.

An Egret’s Dash For Independence

A few minutes into the run, I watched fascinated as a baby egret chick stood by its mother in the marshy waters. Even in my first glimpse, my heart leaped, for the egret chick showed a fierce determination for independence. It edged away – throwing a look towards its mother, and the mother let her (or him) go. By this time, I had jogged on a bit, and the egret chick had clearly had enough of waddling away from its watchful parent and took to flying. The mother let it go, and then followed a few minutes later, setting herself down a little further upstream so she could keep an eye on the little one. It was a charming scene, and the egret and the watchful mother kept me entranced for several minutes. 

There is so much to learn from springtime with regards to parenting. Nest building is happening in earnest, and it is a common sight to watch a crow or a wren pick up some twigs to line their little nest. The geese will have their goslings soon, and those are the best to watch. The same loud, sometimes rude geese, somehow have the most obedient goslings. 

I was attracted once again by the egret chick and found myself looking for the mother. This one had certainly taken off a ways, and I watched a little nervously as a rambunctious dog broke into a run and came careening into the riverbed. I almost stopped and called for the egret mother and urged the chick to run. But I needn’t have worried. Long before I saw the dog, the chick had heard, and flippantly flew across the stream landing elegantly on the opposite side. The egret’s mother flew by too, and went back to fishing a little further away. 

I was impressed – she kept an eye on her chick, gave it the space to learn to navigate danger, and kept giving the little one the space and security to grow. 

All was well. Everyone was having their fun, their adventure and their springtime joys. I smiled and peered ahead to see the son way ahead of me.

🌸🌸🌸 Oubaitori in Spring Time 🌸🌸🌸

Spring is here, and with it, the delightful uncertainties of the weather. 

Would it be a cold, bright, cloudless day, or a cold, cloudy day, or a warm sunny day? The possibilities are endless. Sometimes, I feel like a lamb in spring-time ready for a spot of prancing and rollicking in the hills, other times, like a caterpillar not yet ready to shed the cocoon.

Springtime is a fantastic excuse to wear a silly hat and chase after unicorns, wouldn’t you agree?

– Uncle Fred in the Spring Time – By P G Wodehouse

With the increasing length of our days, it is a beautiful feeling to step out into the sunset at the end of the day, The golden hour seems more radiant, and seems to even linger more, though that just may be due to the fact that the body has had the time to sip a cup of tea at the end of the day before sunset. 

One evening, I stopped to savor a fat plop of a raindrop on my face, and saw that the cherry trees had leaves on them. The flowers had all but gone. They were there two days ago. I peered at another tree not far away, still resplendent in its floral beauty, and another one that had a good smattering of brown leaves along with their pinkish blossoms. Once again, that longing to capture the blooming and blossoming in slow-motion came over me. How lovely it would be to sit and watch for the leaves to come in? 

Ah! What little things give us pause?! 

I read about a beautiful Japanese concept, Oubaitori

The ancient Japanese idiom, Oubaitori, comes from the kanji for the four trees that bloom in spring: cherry blossoms, plum, peach, and apricot. Each flower blooms in its own time, and the meaning behind the idiom is that we all grow and bloom at our own pace.

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A few days later, I went on another walk, this time peering up at a clear blue sky, and no jacket, only to notice the young gingko trees in the neighborhood beginning to sprout their light green leaves of beauty. I remembered the large gingko tree we’d long admired. That large tree, over a century old, fell in the winter storms this year, and I felt a pang. The patch on which it stood was overgrown with fresh grass, and a meadow full of yellow flowers. Nature’s lessons and epiphanies are rarely novel, but always welcome. 

Making a mental note to go for a short hike in the beautiful green hills nearby, I reluctantly headed home. 

Spring time is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s Party’!

– Uncle Fred in the Spring Time – By P G Wodehouse

Maybe it is time for a spot of springtime laughter with the maestro, P G Wodehouse himself.

🪷An Anthophile’s Angst🪷

The Earth in spring is filled with ephemeral beauty. If only there was a way for us to shore up these stores of promise and beauty to dip into on long, drab days when hope isn’t shining out of every pore, life would be set. 

Last week-end, one of my best friends whisked us from our homes to a place where Earth, as Ralph Emerson Waldo, so clairvoyantly says, laughs in flowers. I had seen pictures of tulips from Netherlands, and from Oregon and Washington states as well. It is hard to miss these photographs on social media. But it has helped build the yearning to visit these flower fields in the peak of spring. Who says dreams do not come true? They do, and often, in ways you do not expect, adding a delicious twist of serendipity to the experience. For this time, it came in the form of a girls’ trip to one of my best friends’ home. The exemplary hostess that she is, we came back feeling like queens, glowing in the warmth of laughter and love she enveloped us in, and smiling secret smiles filled with tulips, daffodils, fields, lakes, clouds and the sound of the twinkling camaraderie between friends.

Walking in and out of these flower fields, I stopped to see the different ways in which we sought to preserve these memories for ourselves. The photographs were fast and furious. Some folks, like ourselves, tried silly photographs, and some others were trying their best to obscure the pictures and their angles so as remove the other people around them. I quite understood the yearning, but also felt a bit cheated (though I was guilty of the same thing). You see? I had expected to see endless fields of tulips stretching far into the horizon as far as the eye could see. What I saw instead was a finite field of flowers. They were brilliant, but not endless. The angle of photography can be misleading indeed.

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The ones most appreciative among us were a couple of dogs that stopped to sniff the blossoms reminding me of the dog in Mary Oliver’s poem that loved to sniff flowers.

“I had a dog
who loved flowers.…

she adored
every blossom

not in the serious
careful way
that we choose
this blossom or that blossom

the way we praise or don’t praise –
the way we love
or don’t love –
but the way

we long to be –
that happy
in the heaven of earth –
that wild, that loving.”

― Mary Oliver

Maybe the dog caught a whiff for their sense of smell is far sharper than ours, but we shall never know what the dog smelled. I shall however remember the satisfied contented look in its eyes. There was another child who sniffed at the tulips and looked up questioningly. I understood the confusion in the child’s face for it mirrored mine from a few moments ago: the tulips weren’t fragrant exactly  – they simply had no smell. 

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As I stood there surrounded by tulips first and then daffodils in another farm, I thought longingly of the patch in my front garden. For two years now, I have been trying to get it to bloom. But like a trichologist (Trichology is the scientific study of hair) battling a particularly persistent bald man’s patch, it has so far resisted. A shining bald patch in the middle of the yard, simply refusing to burst forth and shine in the spring time. How these horticulturists managed to get this many plants to bloom altogether, and not one of them a dud, is beyond me. #EarthMagicians.

In any case, I thought to myself as I sniffed a flower, I take inspiration from the dogs in spring time bounding about with energy and a bubbling happiness trying to capture infinity in flowers. An anthophile’s (lover of flowers) angst is easily remedied in the ephemeral beauty of every blossom. No rose stops to think of its purpose in life does it?

“Wild roses,” I said to them one morning.
“Do you have the answers? And if you do,
would you tell me?”
The roses laughed softly. “Forgive us,”
they said. “But as you can see, we are
just now entirely busy being roses.”
– Mary Oliver , Roses

Spring Yodelers

It was a beautiful spring day and the senses were rebelling against the small act of staying indoors. So, I took myself to the seat by the window and lifted the windows. A slight chill came in – like a little river of spring amidst the cozy indoor air. But along with that something else came in too – I call it Spring Yodeling and I smiled despite myself. There, in the park nearby, sat a man who couldn’t stop himself singing at the top of his voice – bass tones and high spirits make for an enjoyable combination. I’ve heard of bards mention ‘song bursting forth’ and have heard the robins bursting with song on a spring morning and all that, but witnessing it is a whole lot better. It was joyous to behold.

If I knew the song, I would’ve joined in – but alas I did not.

I might’ve written it off as exuberant spring spirits, if it weren’t for the fact that I got to listen to another yodeler the same day while on an evening walk. It was a cold day with a promise of the rain and the clouds scudding obligingly to make way for some rays of the setting sun. I was walking along a river bed, and on the opposite side was a yodeler, this time with a high pitch and a wobbly track, but spring yodeling nonetheless.

When two spring yodelers show you how it’s done, a little spring humming cannot be far behind can it? And so, it was, that the son and I hummed to a tune, (completely out of tune obviously but joy and music-correctness are two different things). Afterward, after several glances to ensure no human company was nearby and inviting honks from the geese, we yodeled too. It was out of tune, true, but joyous and glorious all the same. We even got a rainbow to peek out at us at the very end. That must count for something right?!

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Of course, as I sat by the window ledge writing out this piece, I looked for suitable quotes and this one tickled my musical fancy:

“Blessed are those who yodel – for they shall never be troubled by offers of work.” 

― Billy Connolly, Windswept & Interesting: My Autobiography

I threw my head back and laughed – yes, the hummers of that Spring evening shall not be troubled by offers of work in that department, and didn’t that make it all the more enjoyable?

The 🌏 Laughs in 🌸 🌺

Most trees are still bare. Winters are milder in California than elsewhere. Even so, the bare branches of the brilliantly hued trees just a few months ago is stark against the skyline. But then, there are early spring heralders that enthrall and enchant. When I am out walking these days, they are often punctuated with rapture – little stops to admire a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, a tulip bulb poking its head out, or snowdrops working its way through the cold hard months and blooming just in time for the spring equinox.

Snowdrops

Spring is the best time for a saunter. Californian Springs have the best combination of rainy days, cloudy days, sunny days, warm days, cold days, and windy days. Through it all, there is the breathtaking beauty of the flowering trees. It is hard to imagine an Earth without flowers given how much they brighten our days on Earth. But it wasn’t that long ago that Earth was rampant with life and lifeforms without flowers. Makes us stop and think doesn’t it? What else evolution would have up its sleeve if allowed to go at its own pace. How many creations beautiful, mesmerizing, unknown and somewhat hampered by the limits of our own imagination?

Sitting inside on a cold March day and watching the wind whipping the trees outside, and looking at the petals of the cherry blossom flit towards the earth below is fascinating. On sunny days, the birds pecking at the cherry blossom flowers and sending showers of little petals earthwards is showtime. 

I cannot help thinking of the distant lineage of the little birds. Did their dinosaur ancestors see flowers and interact with them? I thought beaks were a particular evolutionary step for nectar. But maybe not. I remember reading that flowering plants only appeared towards the tail-end of the dinosaur’s time on Earth, or maybe even later. I also remember walking along the Natural History Museum time line and thinking that the dinosaurs really missed the marvelous great flowering of planet Earth.

https://earthhow.com/earth-timeline-geological-history-events/

But then again, this recent article seems to think the dinosaurs may have seen flowers after all.

https://www.livescience.com/40088-flowers-existed-with-dinosaurs.html

Quote:

Newfound fossils hint that flowering plants arose 100 million years earlier than scientists previously thought, suggesting flowers may have existed when the first known dinosaurs roamed Earth, researchers say.

LiveScience Journal – article linked

Whether or not the dinosaurs saw the flowers, I am grateful we live in an era when we can experience flowers. All the musings of the cosmic accident of life seems glorious in the flowering trees around us. Meadows are bursting with wildflowers. On a little hike near the coastline one day, we saw hillsides filled with golden orange poppies, lupines, and flowers of yellow, white and pink weaving and waving amidst the fresh green of Earth. Set against most trees that are still bare from the winter the flowers are a sharp reminder of all the stark contrasts of life.

We don’t know about all the forms of life possible in our universe, and probably never will find the enormity and possibilities. Yet in that very paradox lies the power of musing.

Mother’s Day in the Jungle

It’s Friday! It’s It’s It’s Friday!

I heard the son singing his Friday song. An infernal song with lyrics that are straight out of an album I know, but the rendition usually has joy in it, and that salvages it somewhat. I am partial to Friday mornings myself, but last week, I was simply unable to get out of bed even though I had something marvelous to look forward to. I know some folks who get up like an LED light: Zap to glory as soon as the switch is on.  How I envy these marvelous folks?! They light up at the crack of dawn and seem to bustle on. 

Self? I need a dragging to the watering hole, and steady nourishment to get to functioning state in a span of 2 hours. The husband gave me an amused look, and tried reviving the drooping shoulder with some coffee, but it wasn’t enough.

An hour later, I buzzed into the kitchen dancing and flitting like a hummingbird in spring. You see, I was invited to read my story, Mother’s Day in the Jungle, to the son’s elementary school classroom. 

Mother’s Day in the JungleScreen Shot 2021-05-09 at 12.19.16 AM

I love this one – It is a heartwarming story about the little animals in the forest getting together to prepare a mother’s day feast for their mothers. But one of them gets caught trying to pilfer sweet potatoes from Farmer Hasalot’s farm. 

At the end of the story, the children asked me questions, and I am always blown away by how much thought they put into these questions. I told them about how some parts of the story at least are inspired by elephants in the South Indian plains. They were curious to learn about elephant mothers and calves. They wanted to know about animal practices and whether the elephants or farmers were right, taking us beautifully into discussions on animal rights. 

As I read the story out to the children, it got me thinking of the many beautiful lessons of parenting that the animal kingdom shows us. So, that evening, I took off on a walk by the creekside. Watching the ducklings, and goslings take to the waters with their parents on either side is beautiful in spring. The birds flying home to their nests with the little ones waiting in nests is charming.

It is time to read Robert McCloskey’s adorable book. Make Way for the Ducklings

make_way_ducklings

What would we do without Mothers? 

Happy Mother’s Day to all you wonderful mothers out there. There are days when getting up is a chore, but days like this one with unexpected gifts make up for it, don’t they?

The Joy-o-meter

“I read the book like Appa watches a movie! Done in 15 minutes, but got the gist. “ I said to general laughter. When the Spring cleaning bug bites, the family scuttles, and shy away from me like a horse that choked on plastic flowers once, and whinnies at the fresh wildflowers in the fields. 

“Really Amma! You too?” said the children

I admit I usually do not resort to the skimming technique. But this time, I read the Marie Kondo book on The Magic of Tidying Up.  “Well …. You know how some books have all they need to say in an article, but make books and songs out of them? That was this book. In essence, the table of contents should suffice, but if you want the nub of the thing, it is: If something doesn’t spark joy discard it!” 

“So, why are you still here?” Came the answer pat. Really! The speed of the repartee, I will never learn I tell you. I just walk into traps, and then goggle like a famished gargoyle, with these smart-alecks in the home. 

I sniffed a haughty sniff, and continued. “Anyway, I am going to apply the concept to the whole house. So, if something sparks joy in you, keep it, else junk it. Spring cleaning starts tomorrow!” I said in my best energetic cleaner voice. Dark looks were exchanged, some mutterings were heard, and talk was ripe of hoping that I would head out into those long walks that have me famished by the end of it all, so I spare the lot the anguish of losing things. The problem is of course that the things the children are passionate about and the things I am passionate about, are not an intersecting set. Consequently, the last time, I threw away a cardboard box, I spent a trying afternoon with the son who behaved like a gladiator losing his arena. I have since learnt my lesson, and they are given a warning. 

cardboard_box

I started the morning with my closet feeling like Mole spring cleaning his home in The Wind in the Willows.

The Mole had been working hard all morning spring cleaning his little home.

I must tell you. How do you mean ‘spark joy’? Some clothes you see are out of fashion, have some problems, faded etc. But mostly I seem to have clothes that I liked. So, how to deploy the joy-o-meter by them? 

Almost all my ethnic clothes evoked memories – does that count as sparking joy? For instance, I picked up the pink skirt bought in a bazaar in Jaipur. The blue hand-drawn elephants were not exactly life-like, but I could not stop the memories from marching in. The sister-in-law and I had had a tete-a-tete with the skirt vendor, and we landed up enjoying tea, pakoras, and a long chat on local artisans and design techniques, while the husband stood nearby sounding like a cooker letting out impatient steam.

Or the carefully hand woven and fabric painted dupatta that I had decided was too much to buy in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk bazaar, and settled for more utilitarian lunch boxes.  Imagine my glee then, only to find that the lovely dupatta was bought for me by the loving family on a subsequent shopping trip seeing how much I liked it. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

peacock_dupatta

Or the dancing saree that captured my spirit? The one with ballet dancers and Bharatnatyam dancers printed on them in unison – East-West collaboration at its saree best. 

The only ones I could apply the rule to, seemed to be the mass produced mall clothes bought in ‘Sale’ sections, which wasn’t much.

If there was a usage ratio to apply, almost all of the ethnic clothes can be set aside. If there was a cost to the environment ratio to be applied, one must keep these clothes till we use them at least a few times before discarding them. Over this, one must apply the cultural umbrella of using new clothes for every occasion, and the result is a sorry state of affairs.

I wonder if joy-o-meter designs can use all these variables. 

I looked pityingly at the disappointing results of the morning scourge. Feeling a bit of a hypocrite, I told the children to save anything they liked, and almost instantly regretted it, for the son ran for the largest cardboard box set for the recycling bin and said – “Dibs! I want this in my room!” 

No wonder the Mole preferred to scurry outside into the beautiful spring rather than finish spring cleaning his home.

“The joy of living and the delight of spring made him jump into the air, and he raced across the meadow ….” – The Wind in the Willows

The Joy-O-Meter swung to the right, and all was well with the world.

Spring Fever

“Why do goats looks so stern? I thought they are happy especially now in spring-time. Like lambs in spring-time could also mean like goat-kids in spring-time, no?”

The children exchanged looks. They knew to diagnose my bout of Spring Fever. I am seen scuttling off to sniff the air and marvel at life sitting up and stirring from its sleepy winter state. I head into the house looking flushed and happy. By evening, I am tired, but refuse to reduce the dose of spring bounding. But still this talk of stern looking goats had them worried.

“Ma?! You okay? Why are we talking of goats now?” said the daughter a mock-solicitous look in her eye, and I laughed out loud, and told them the context of the goat-ish tale.

“Well, it all started like this. Do you remember last Friday evening being  particularly beautiful? So, I shut the laptop with a whim, and headed out into the sunset. The hills were alive with the magic of spring. I told myself poetically that I could not bear to be a cell in a spreadsheet anymore. I wanted to be a newly sprouted leaf on a tree, a whimsical flower fluttering away in the mild breeze, or a Finnish fainting goat chewing thoughtfully at that latest blade of grass.

“Not for me the confines of mankind! Get rid of the shackles, and head out! “ I said.

” Uh-hm – someone would think you have a mission you are fighting for. How many times will you take pictures of the cherry blossoms and the clouds, and the sunset, hmm?” said the children but I waved these things away. Days like this are not meant to be wasted indoors arguing about the wisdom or lack thereof of going outdoors.

For a few months of the year, our neck of the woods resembles fairy lands, or the lands of the gods, or maybe heaven itself. The occasional rains, the burst of wildflowers, and the sunsets are all glorious. So much so that I find myself wandering around the countryside apparently lost, but really just finding the inner self. At least it is what I tell myself when that pile of laundry needs washing or that closet needs cleaning. Marie Kondo urges me to better myself, but Early Spring is more inviting. 

The fox squirrels atop the plum blossoms look naughty, while the fainting goat looks stern, the horse in the pastures peaceful, and the sunset glorious.

Where was I? Yes, on the stern looks of Finnish fainting goats. I had often wondered while reading the Three Billy Goats Gruff why the author went in for Gruff, but I see the choice of the word as I stood there admiring the serene setting against which the Finnish Fainting goat stood in its patch of farmland.

“Anyway, ” I said getting back to the point of stern goats, “I suppose if I had foul folks like me boggling at their spot of residence in that manner just because it is Spring, I would be gruff too! But the goat has a manner that is at once endearing, sober and majestic. The clump of fur on its chin growing away like a goatee (Get it? Get it? Goats have goatees!) made it look wise, and the green grass it chomped on made the world look a sweeter place.”

The children moaned not unlike the goat, and said, “Why not just call it a goat, why this fancy Finnish Fainting Goat?”

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“That is easy my dears. Google assures me that the picture I took of the goat is a Finnish Fainting Goat. And in any case, I doubt you would have listened patiently if I said I would tell you a story about a goat. No you would not have. But a Finnish Fainting Goat got your attention, did it not?” I said feeling clever.

“Ma?!” said the daughter, clenching her teeth. “You haven’t told us the story of the goat. You told us about the goat…you know what?! Never mind!”

“Yes…Never mind.” I said using that conciliatory spring-time tone, and said, “I will take you hiking there to see the old fellow. I am sure you all will like him. Looks like a satyr of your Greek myths. There is your story! Percy Jackson stuff on our next hike! ”

I ignored the ensuing groans. The fainting goat satyr and narcissus blooms will help.

Sunny Side Up

California is bursting with beauty in Spring. Sometimes, the beauty is unimaginable in the literal sense of the world. When I close my eyes at night,  I see upon my mind’s eye the flowers rushing to bloom, and the leaves sprouting etc, but reality is much better. Hope is stirring, and I feel a great need to join nature’s party. 

The pandemic lifestyle has chipped into my reading time somewhat, so I felt a treat was in order. Uncle Fred in the Springtime, by P. G. Wodehouse was that treat. I spent time with the decision. Like an excited toddler told that they can choose either the candy or the ice cream. Should I visit Bertie Wooster & Jeeves, or the beautiful gardens of Blandings Castle? 

As I sat squashed between a rosemary bush on the left, a lavender patch behind me and purple verbena flowers (I think) on the right, I felt like Lord Ickenham (Uncle Fred) myself. A great sense of peace and a sanguine sense all-will-be-well stole over me. 

Uncle Fred in the Springtime by [P. G. Wodehouse]

Not for the first time did I thank the universe for sunny minds like P.G.Wodehouse. I suppose there are quite a few like him in this world- thank goodness he chose to share his bounty with us. 

A telling piece had me analyzing life from various angles and my restive spirit bounded off on its own. A helpful bee buzzed me back to the gardens of Shropshire where Lord Emsworth waited patiently with his large pig, The Empress of Blandings. 

“Anyone ignorant of the difference between a pessimist and an optimist would have been able to pick up a useful pointer of two by scanning the faces of this nephew and this uncle. The passage of time had done nothing to relieve Pongo’s apprehensions regarding the… As always when fate had linked his movements with those of the head of the family, he was feeling like a man floating over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Lord Ickenham, on the other hand, was all that was jovial and debonair. Tilting his hand at a jaunty angle, he gazed about him with approval at the decorous station which has for so many years echoed to the tread of county families.”

I felt for Pongo Twistelton. To hobnob with one with such an optimistic outlook as Lord Ickenham isn’t all roses and lavender, as I knew only too well.  The husband suffers from incorrigible optimism, and it is most trying. When you’d like to blow a few whistles like a cooker with too much pressure built up, it doesn’t help to see your partner-in-exactly-the-same-situation bleating happily and behaving like all these pressures are life’s little gifts meant to tease and ease our life.

The t-shirt his children chose for him has the phrase: ‘There is 50% water, 50% air, Technically, the glass is completely full!’

And he deserves every syllable of it. 

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Personality perplexes all the time. I have wondered how perfectly stout fellows with excellent circumstances in life, go about life like their last bondas were nicked from under their nose perpetually; and how others who have their last bondas nicked from under their noses, go about singing and shrugging it off saying, ‘That last bonda would really have been too much. Truly marvelous!”

The Disney Pixar movie, Soul, hits the mysteries of personalities bang on the head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs–6c7Hn_A

Who enters the optimistic tent and which ones were lured into the pessimistic tents? Could we find a way to get us some optimism? The surest way I’ve found is via a peek into the ‘sunlit perfection’ of the worlds created by sunny minds such as P G Wodehouse.

For those moping about life, please head outdoors and take a sprig of spring. All others, please do the same. 

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