April, May, Tulips, and Writing

I hope you all has a wonderful Easter! We did; my husband's family came out for the weekend, and we thoroughly enjoyed spending time together, filling and hiding plastic eggs for the kids to hunt on Sunday after church, and eating all the food I could keep coming out of my kitchen. We were a surprisingly hungry bunch this weekend!

As much as I loved having family out, and visiting them in our turn, I must confess to a sneaking sense of relief and freedom as we enter the month of April. Why? Because we have NOTHING planned. No trips, no people coming out to see us, nothing. Just living.

Now, I have learned in the last almost-decade of my married life that this is usually when life decides to laugh heartily at our expense and whack us on the nose with a broomstick. So I'm fully expecting Things to Happen. Even so, I'm reveling in the illusion of freedom right now.

We can finally start following our schedule! I can finish sewing the kids' spring clothes! I can get more writing done! We'll be able to do more than two days of school in a week! I can keep practicing driving so as to be more comfortable behind the wheel by the time we move! Carl and I can work together on the weekends to sort, organize, and pack boxes so that I don't get completely overwhelmed by it all the week before we move!

(I am so laughing at myself even as I type this. This is NOT going to happen.)

Also of excitement to me are two things happening in May (in the merry, merry month of May ...). One: my mother is getting her Master's! We're going up north for her graduation ceremony, and THEN we're going just a little further north to go to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa, Canada.

This was an excursion we made most years when I was a kid, and Carl and I have wanted to go up every year since we were dating, and never made it. This year I said since we were already going to be so close (my parents live just south of the US-Canada border) at the right time of year, we WERE going to go. And so we are making sure our passports are up to date and GOING. I can't wait. The girls are going to be blown away by so many tulips in one place, and downtown Ottawa is always worth a visit even without the flowers. Hurrah!

The second thing will actually happen before the first (confused yet?). For Mother's Day weekend, happening before my mom's graduation, Carl is going to take the kids to visit his mom. Where will I be during this? I'm SO glad you asked. I will be having a couple days entirely to myself. Not Here. Not at home, surrounded by all the Things I need to do every day, mocking me whenever I take the time to write. Not at his mother's, where I still have to be mommy and wife (and daughter-in-law) even though we aren't home. They are going to drop me off somewhere between our house and his mother's, and I will have a real-live solo writing retreat. It's my (belated)birthday present/(current)Mother's Day present/(future)keeping everything functioning while Carl's in seminary present.

So, any recommendations for a good place to stay in the Berkshires or southern Vermont for a solo writing retreat with no car?

And how is April looking for you?

Ever been to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa?

Did you have a nice Easter?

(A picture from last spring, taken at a park here in our city. Now imagine that, plus thousands more. THAT'S what it will be like in Ottawa.)

Turning

I woke up this morning to a fog so thick that for a split second, my sleep-befuddled brain thought it was snowing because it was so white outside my window.

(Incidentally, wouldn't that be a great opening line for a story?)

The summer heat has worked its usual magic, and I find myself looking as forward to autumn and - dare I admit it? - even winter as I was to spring and summer this past March.

Autumn and spring are my favorite seasons, each in its turn. I love the awakening that comes with spring, the glorious warmth and light after an inevitably long, cold, dark winter. I love to see the world turning green, the birds returning and filling the air with song, the flowers and plants pushing up from the ground. Everything is fresh and new, and returning to life, and my soul expands with it.

It is a quieter delight that comes with the autumn. The summer has (usually) been hot enough to make me long for cooler days and crisp nights. Even if its a cool summer, I still find myself looking forward to the richness of the autumn colors, the leaves changing and the apples ripening, and soon, the snow starting to fall and all the joys that come with that.

My writing always flows so much better with the changing of the seasons. Watching life start again in the spring, as well as seeing everything settle down in autumn, both start my inspirational juices flowing. My other creative interests seek outlets then, too - usually my quilting picks up for the cooler months, while gardening and photography interest me in the spring and summer.

Our life has taken an unexpected twist this past month, and we have no idea if we will stay in this house for the next month, season, or year. But I know that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, the earth will continue to turn, and the seasons to change. There is great comfort in that, great hope. Great trust.

Do you have a favorite season? Are you happy to see summer drawing to a close, or does the very thought of cooler weather make you cringe? What times during the year are the best for your writing, or other creative outlets?