Dear friends, even though I am feeling better, I'm not feeling *all* better, hence the continued dance through the archives. This was originally posted on April 3, 2004, but the sentiments still hold true (they particularly held true on Wednesday night, when stiff winds literally blew my down Eighth Avenue while sleet pounded into my face).
What wondrous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade...
How well the skillful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new,
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!
-- from "The Garden" by Andrew Marvell
I know that not three months ago, in this very space, I was complaining about people, specifically New Yorkers, who complain about winter. I made a lot of noise about how a harsh winter was the price we had to pay for a mild spring, that when winter is too warm and dry, spring feels like an unearned pleasure. I held no truck with people who gave vox pop interviews to the local news about how they hated this weather, just hated it, couldn't wait for spring, and if I remember correctly, I harshed on people whose only crime was to have a pain threshhold lower than mine.
Dear friends, consider this my apology, my mea culpa, my official crying of "uncle." I want spring, and I want it now.
The fact that the vernal equinox was two weeks ago is immaterial to me. The fact that daylight savings time starts tonight matters little (except, of course, for longer daylight -- woo-hoo!). It is not spring yet. It's not exactly winter, either; no, it's one of those weird interseasonal limboes. One day the temperature hits 69 degrees, the wind is warm and friendly, firemen smile at you in the park and you have to fight the urge to lick them on the neck. (Errr, maybe *you* don't...) Two days later, your local Fox affiliate interrupts The Simpsons to warn you that a nor'easter is on its way, and your neighbors are rushing around, throwing plastic tarps over their hyacinths and narcissus. The next day, you can't walk a block without becoming snowblinded, and the paper bag in which you were foolish enough to pack your lunch disintegrates violently on the sidewalk. Then the snow disappears, the sky stays grey, the temperature hovers around 53 and refuses to budge.
I want spring and I want it now. This past winter has left a lot of cobwebs in its wake, and it is time to burn them off. It's true that I was given a particularly nice gift this winter, but too many people I love were not so lucky. I have been witness to the end of a marriage, two broken engagements, lost jobs, estrangement from parents, estrangement from children, the death of friendship, the death of love, heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak. On a global level, I should no longer be stunned by the level of cruelty humans can show to each other, but it always stuns me, every damn time. I have had enough, and I am not alone.
I am ready to pack away my sweaters and unpack my t-shirts. I am ready to play a lot of XTC. For some reason, XTC always makes me feel springy, particularly anything from Mummer, Skylarking or Apple Venus Vol. I. The first time I heard "River of Orchids," I thought it was one of the weirdest things they'd ever written, but the more I hear it, the warmer it makes me feel on the inside. To me, it is the sound of flowers exploding into bloom, riots of color saturation. It is the sound of rain in May, rain that makes grass bright green and impossibly soft, that makes dogwoods white and lacy, that makes rivers rise.
Most of all, though -- and really, are you surprised that this is the direction in which I was going all along? -- I am ready for spring food. I am so ready for spring food that under the influence of a shot of wheatgrass juice (I swear, honey, it wasn't me, it was the chlorophyll!), I went to the market this morning and bought 1/2 pound of pea shoots and a dozen Araucana eggs. I used to buy these eggs on an almost weekly basis. Then the New York Times and Martha Stewart discovered these beautiful eggs with the celadon shells, deep orange yolks and intensely buttery taste, and suddenly the eggs were sold out by 7:45 a.m. I used to pay $3.00/dozen for them. This morning I found them for $5.00/half-dozen. Of course I forked over for them, of course I did. These are not eggs for baking, even though they would bring wonderful color and flavor to brioche...but no, no, no, no. These are eggs for omelettes, for frittata, or for those gorgeous custardy scrambled eggs made over simmering water in a double-boiler, the kind that you make only for someone you really love, because 'tain't no way you're going to stand at the stove for 45 minutes, stirring eggs for someone you don't love.
It's a good start, these beautiful fresh eggs, these sweet green pea shoots, but it's not enough. My favorite salad is a mix of pea shoots for sweetness, arugula for pepper and sorrel for the hit of sour. I love sorrel so much that I have eaten it out of the bag by the handful, like potato chips, although the food scientist extraordinaire Shirley Corriher warns that sorrel can be toxic eaten in macroquantities. Oops. I am ready for sorrel. I am ready for ramps, the wild leeks that are only in season for about five weeks, but are plentiful and ubiquitous during that season. Most of all, I am ready for rhubarb. Unlike my friends in a faraway country, I can't get good forced rhubarb in January, and thus must wait for rhubarb season before I can make rhubarb jam, rhubarb compote, rhubarb fool (basically rhubarb compote stirred into whipped cream) and the marvelous steamed pudding of rhubarb and vanilla sponge evocatively known as pig's bum. I can taste it now, burning its sweet-sour shock into my tongue, making everything taste bright and clean again. But no, it is not in the bond, not until May, anyway.
Sigh. It's four weeks to May. I can wait four weeks. But I will still feel it in my bloodstream. Bring the spring, bring the spring, bring the spring.
