My bleeding hearts are dying. My lovely, first-to-bloom-in-spring bleeding hearts, with their chartreuse-green leafy stalks and their petite red heart-shaped buds, which hang like cute little earrings in display, have collapsed under the weight of the below-freezing temperatures that have assaulted us for days now.
I know it's irrational and silly, but I wanted to scream at the smiling weatherman two days ago because he continued to grin while he forecast temperatures in the low 20s through Tuesday. This is April, carajo, in case Evil Winter hasn't noticed.
Can't the weatherman see, I wondered, that there's nothing to smile about in the weather department, especially when the bleeding hearts are dying and the gorgeous tulips look like they've given up the ghost and the water in the bird bath is a miniature skating rink, and the daffodils wonder what hit them and the peonies wish they could become ostriches to dig their heads back into the ground?
Dr. S is right when she says this is spring in Ohio, it's not that Evil Winter is hanging on with claws and fangs, trying to remind us of who's boss in this part of North America where we are so much closer to the Arctic winds of Canada than to the warm breezes of Mexico.
I know all that in the rational part of my brain but my bleeding hearts are dying and there's nothing I can do about it. And I'm not good when dealing with things I can do nothing about. I'm still in training on that one. For now, all I can do is pray that the bleeding hearts will hang on to life a few more days when the temperatures will rise and when they'll hopefully stop dying.
2 comments:
Yeah, I've kind of been regretting having been so matter-of-fact about the weather the other day. This many days in the 20s is not springtime, at least not in Ohio (as compared to, say, upstate New York).
The tulips will make it, my mom says. She had 100 red tulips go through a snowstorm in Detroit--after they'd already bloomed--and come out just fine.
It was the hope in your assessment that taught me a lesson. Here I am, saying live every day to the max, and these days I just want to shut my eyes and hope they go away asap. I'm still in training, that's for sure. :)
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