One day

Julia ♦ February 26, 2025 ♦ 5 Comments

These little flowers brightened my kitchen all week, February 2018.

“I have wandered far upon the desert plain, but in my heart a bird keeps singing, and the daffodils beckon and blow, — and one day I shall wander back.” — Muriel Strode

Last week was a good one for me, but it began on a gloomy note. I spent most of the week at our York home, where I had hoped to get some yard work done in the unseasonably warm weather. But the first day I was there it was rainy and overcast, and there was little I could do outdoors. The rain exacerbated my sad and lonely mood.

I decided that I would at least begin to prioritize what to do if it turned sunny. Taking advantage of the 60-degree temperature that made the soggy ground more bearable, I strolled around the wooded area behind our back yard, which comprises about a third of our lot. This area lies outside the fence, and I jokingly dubbed it the Lower 40 when we first moved there almost 14 years ago. It was only the second time I had been back there since Jeff died. As with so much else, it is still redolent of dashed dreams and lingering loss.

The setting was fraught with that peculiar melancholy common in late winter, when much is dead and bare, left messy and moldering by the weeks of cold. Jeff’s long illness meant that the woodland we had once tended so lovingly was neglected for several years, and I silently resigned myself to the very real possibility that it would remain so as long as I own the property.

As I neared the creek that forms the back boundary of our lot, I was flooded with joy at the unexpected sight of daffodils blooming in mid-February. There is a tiny patch of them on the creek bank that have been growing wild there for as long as we’ve lived nearby. For some reason, though they are growing in full shade, they always bloom earlier than the larger daffodil bulbs I planted in various sunnier spots in the front and back yard.

I love to see them each year, and I’m always tempted to pick them or dig them up and transplant them, since the only eyes likely to see them are mine and those of the deer and other creatures who come to the stream to drink. Usually I decide to leave them where they are, gracing an otherwise drab scene. If I’d had my camera with me, I probably would have taken a photo or two, and left them alone.

But that day, it seemed they had appeared just for me, almost calling out my name. I picked several of them and brought them inside where I enjoyed them all week. They were still blooming when I left, so I changed out the water in the little vase and put them in the fridge to see if they would keep while I was gone. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

By morning light…

I think I’ve mentioned here before that daffodils have always been my favorite flowers. I still have a dried one from the bunch Jeff brought to me at the hospital on the morning Drew was born. They seem irrepressibly cheerful to me, their yellow color and unique form putting a smile on my face no matter how I might feel before I first spot them.

…and when the late afternoon sun hit them.

More than any other flower, they beckon me to believe in the springtime to come, literally and figuratively.

I hope that your week will hold everyday surprises that brighten your days as my little flowers have brightened mine.

This post was first published seven years ago. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.