I can feel spring around the corner today. Which means it’s quite possible it will snow next week. Spring where I live is fickle. Warm and blue skies on a Saturday, ominous skies and snow clouds on Sunday. We call it Fring. False Spring. But I’ll take it. I’ll take those now and again spring like days where I pick off my dead geranium leaves, open the window a crack, and turn down the heat. I complain about winter a little, okay a lot, but I secretly like the changing of seasons here in Ashland, Oregon. There is a definitive schedule every 3-4 months, just like a calendar’s photos. White in winter. pastel in spring, yellow and green in summer and orange and red in the autumn. It’s literally that clockwork with a few of these February false alarms like today.
It’s early still, just the first few days of February, but the days are longer. It no longer feels like night at 4:30 in the afternoon. There are buds on my trees and patches of green growth on the azalea bushes. My paints and paintings are also infused with pastels and florals and green goodness. I hadn’t planned on painting this particular still life but that’s what happens when art imitates life and you show up to what’s around you. Painting and writing becomes a form of osmosis. You’ll know where I am if I start waxing poetic and painting landscapes of palm dreams, white sand and surf boards…until then. xo