I confess the inspiration for this post is from another blog I follow called ‘Becoming Madame’ (becomingmadame.wordpress.com/).  She writes about all things French, and particularly Parisian.  If you are a Francophile, or just an armchair traveler, you will enjoy it.  However, I have just taken an afternoon walk on a gorgeous Ohio spring day. It may not be Paris, but it is no less magical.

Flowering Crabapple

Blossoming cherry and pear trees hummed from bees stealing their share from nectar filled blossoms.  Local inhabitants echoed the busy bees, matching their industrious buzzing with droaning lawn mowers. The smell of freshly mown grass made me ‘heady’ as if I’d just drunk some magical elixir meant to help relive a perfect spring day from childhood. (All you skeptics may say it is the high pollen count, but leave me to my own delusions).

Poplar Ridge Drive

I have flown from halfway around the world so that I could visit my parents and walk the lazy lane from  their house, curving toward the highway, in the glory of Spring.  Robin Red Breasts bounced along in front of me, looking for earthworms and other tasty morsels.  Jonquils, daffodils and tulips nodded their greetings to me as I meandered along.  Red bud trees and weeping cherries modeled their Victoria’s Secret lacy apparel on the runway of Poplar Ridge.  Optimistic August lilies  pushed through the earth toward their flowering mission late in summer.  An uncontrollable urge paused me for a few moments in the storm of snowing petals, and I rejoiced in their satin softness in my hair and on my shoulders.  It is a fairyland.  Perhaps the contrast to the dusty, red arid climate in which I live has magnified the experience, but who cares?  Every texture and color conspired for equal attention to inspire this artist’s creative urges.

Cherry blossoms

And if there was any doubt that spring was truly here, the little squirrel that scampered across the road and brought my eyes to rest on the man mowing his lawn confirmed it.  He was dressed in jeans (the man, not the squirrel!), a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap and t-shirt!  The beginning of baseball season is the surest sign of spring known to a girl from Southern Ohio!!

A sprig of pink tinged Viburnum from the yard adorns a bud vase beside me. Its spicy, intoxicating perfume nearly overwhelms me, alluring, no, mesmerizing me into a kind of spring fever haze (ok, coupled with remaining effects of jet lag!)  I feel almost giddy!  If only someone could bottle this! No wonder so many songs have been written about Spring time.  Join me in celebrating the affirming rebirth of Mother Earth, one of life’s true joys.

(And anyway, here is the chainsaw sculpture of Charles de Gaulle that resides here on Poplar Ridge, so really, what has France got in Springtime that Bethel hasn’t?)

Chainsaw sculpture of Charles de Gaulle by Ralph Silvis