“Spring cannot be canceled.”
—David Hockney
After the catastrophic ice storm we had in February, it is enormously heartening to walk around the neighborhood 3 months later and see all the new growth and life. One plant at the end of my street that was hacked down to the ground is so tall now that I have to look up to see the top:
The prickly pear cacti that looked like they’d been melted in the microwave have now, in some places, grown a few layers of nubby neon paddles.
There are new fronds spiking out of the top of my battered windmill palms in the backyard.
And although Coconut and her mate have flown elsewhere, a cardinal has made a nest in one of the orange trees my wife has growing in a planter on the back porch. (We have named her “Claudia Cardinale.”)
