Tell It To Me Slowly

Give me Constable-like skies and I will rise to the occasion.

I will walk bare-legged to the river to hear it roar.

I will spend the afternoon planting flowers in my garden because, with 20 hours of rain in the last day and a half, the soil is easy to dig and the bare spots are calling for color. It's not misting, but there's definitely moisture all around, and it's somewhere in between warm and cool.  The air feels like no temperature at all.

I will take two hours to add dozens of annuals and perennials to my pocket garden, mostly in spots south of the heirloom pink rose bushes and west of the miniature rose that came with the garden.

I will get overly warm, damp from mist and finish up fully filthy under a moody sky.

I will feel like I'm driving into a storm as we head east to Church Hill for dinner under dramatically-lit sunset clouds.

I will taste Spring with Dutch & Co.'s chilled pea soup with practically a salad on top in the way of chili shrimp, peanuts and pea shoots. I will sample braised beef cheek, while eating salmon rillette and fried chili cauliflower. I will share a stroopwaffle with caramel, all accompanied by La Galope Rose.

I will listen to records with Holmes and Beloved for the first time since before Thanksgiving and I will want to hear the Zombies. From the opening notes of  "Time of the Season," I'm reminded not only of how effortlessly cool sounding it was, but how well it's held up. It's 50 years old, for cryin' out loud.

I will stand in the street when I leave Homes' house to study the still painterly clouds trying to unsuccessfully block the moon in the night sky.

I will remember how Beloved asked me if it was all worth it and I said an unequivocal yes without hesitation.

I will appreciate again of what a beautiful Constable day it was.