Some Thoughts About May

And just like that, the snow is gone. We shed our winter coats, sometimes needing a sweater, sometimes needing shorts. The allium that I planted last fall are now large purple orbs, full of happy bees. The daffodils fade but my Snow Flurry irises open in the backyard—shimmering white petals etched in a soft purple. My peonies are full of buds and soon my yard will be filled with their delicate pink and cream flowers. 

I work in the garden every day, weeding and planting tender seedlings. My dahlia tubers are planted near a row of marigolds and I hope the orange blooms are a buffer for the earwigs. I put petunias near my onions and shallots, their white, pink, and red blooms marking each row. I harden off my zinnias and cosmos that have been in the basement for a month now. I hope I will soon have sherbet-colored blooms in my side yard. 

When my children come home from school they play outside and our days stretch into the night. There is baseball and several nights a week we walk down to the fields to watch one of my children’s games, eating salty popcorn and freeze pops from the concession stand. 

The days are warm and full of sun. The humidity is low, the nights cool and dry and as the daylight drags late into the evening, I think that maybe I like summer. But this isn’t summer, a voice in the back of my head says. Summer is hot and sticky, my hands swollen from heat, my energy low. Summer is long days with my children out of school, too hot to play outside by lunchtime. 

I switch out my children’s wardrobes, replacing warm sweaters with t-shirts and shorts. I whisper goodbye to fabrics and prints that will no longer be a part of their childhood. May is a time of shedding what’s old and too small, a time of fading spring blooms, a time of saying goodbye. But there are bees and butterflies and so much green that the goodbyes are surrounded by so many hellos. My garden is full of young seedlings—glimmers of hope, bursting with new promises.