Yesterday my daughter Martha came over to help me bake bread. There's a little wintertime farmer's market. I found out about it through my buying club group. The group is memphis.locallygrown.net and it's sole purpose is to give gardeners and farmers in the area a little market in the winter where they can sell winter crops: lettuce, mizuna, arugula, turnip greens, eggs, etc. 

They agreed to sell my bread in their little market.

Martha and I spent the day together baking. 

We delivered the bread to a little bungalow on the other side of town where the members meet to pick up their orders. As we were pulling out of the driveway to return home, Martha said, "What is that? We used to have one in the yard. What's it called?"

"It's a spirea," I said looking at the soft thin branches clumped together filled with tiny white flowers.

"No, it's called something else."

"Bridal veil," I replied.

"Yeah, we used to pull the flowers off and throw the pedals up in the air like confetti. I love that bush, so much confetti, it's so pretty," she said with what I recognized as just a bit of wistfulness in her voice.

When I was a child, growing up in Covington, I had the same kind of experience with flowers. There was a quince, a flowering quince, in our back yard. When that shrub bloomed I was captivated by the beauty of it. Not consciously, I don't think. But it was the beginning of a long relationship I was to have with flowers.

Such a simple thing, looking at a flower, gazing, getting lost in its beauty. I don't understand it, but I knew even as a child that I was being invited by flowers. Invited? That's an odd way to put it, but I think that is the only word I can think of to express what I felt, what I feel.

There are quince in my neighborhood here in Memphis. They've been blooming for nearly two weeks now. Unfortunately they have stickers on them. I don't know that I want one in my yard, but I'm glad I get to enjoy them in other yards. 

Has this been a long winter for you?

Last Sunday I awoke to the sound of a bird singing outside my window. I heard a voice inside me say, "Stay. Be still. Listen."
Breathing, I listened to the pronouncements of the bird. The wise old tree outside the window sighed with relief that I'd decided to join them. I pulled the covers around me and sunlight filtered in softly and pulled up a chair. Together we heard the earth sing.

Spring. Spring is here. Spring.

Ask the quince what winter is.