Janet Weisiger: May blossoms again
The month of May is here again and spring flowers are popping up all over the place. What joy to take a walk and enjoy the colors of spring. Yellow forsythia, purple hyacinth, purple, pink and red tulips dance before our eyes. Even the trees show their color with their green budding leaves. The time of winter is over, we can bring out the lawn chairs and bask in the sunshine. What fun to pack our winter clothes away and enjoy catching baseballs and feel the warm sun on our arms. The joy of changing seasons has come again.
And, of course, the special time of the year for Holland is always Tulip Time, with lots of parades and multiple activities like pretty Dutch girls clomping in the streets wearing Dutch wooden shoes. We all love Tulip Time. As the public fans gather from all over the country to watch the young Dutch girls dancing in the streets wearing their homemade beautiful Dutch costumes, we here in Holland rejoice as we proudly watch them.
May brings us lots of busy times in our gardens as we brush away the winter debris and plant new flowers. I like the kind of perennials that bloom all summer carrying their colorful flowers into September. The colors that spring and summer bring to us cause our hearts to feel the beauty of our earth. But gardening takes work and time so we make critical decisions at this time of year. Our kids have lots of energy, as you know. So how wonderful it is that this time of year our kids can move outside again and enjoy their sports.
I remember, as a youth, planting in my garden in the spring. If the weather had turned cold like this year, there was not much we planted this early because cold rain or even light snow flurries might mess up our plans. But hopefully, the weather will cooperate with us and the early tiny tomato plants that we begin planting in May will blossom and grow and produce luscious bright red tomatoes. Of course, Daddy did most of the dirt-digging work but I was right behind him with my shovel and bag of fertilizer.
A most precious picture of the arrival of the early spring are birds. Here, in Michigan, we see finches — the House Finch with its red head and breast, the Robin, lots of wrens, yellow wrens ... many different birds that I have not identified. I have bird feeders in my bedroom window so I can watch them buzz around, scare smaller birds and eat as much bird food as they can. The small birds and the larger RedWing Blackbirds have a good time all eating what they crave. The birds of many varieties fly north to escape the hot summer sunshine and leave the deep south behind. I love watching the birds. They seem to communicate with each other as they nip each other or push each other away. They don’t show signs of fighting with each other but they sure show signs of who is "in control."
Another part of spring was the "boyfriend" who was always in my plans for a warm summer evening. In our house on Grand Avenue, we had a screened front porch and I would have wonderful conversations with him in the cool of the evenings. Mom and Daddy chose to sit inside and watch the latest game on TV so we had the porch to ourselves. How romantic were those times.
Yes, as we all remember those wonderful days of yore, let our hearts feel that they blossomed during those times. No, I did not marry one of those boyfriends that I had such crushes on but it made me feel that I was mature and able to love some young man in the future. College years do help us to mature and plan our futures with concrete decisions. Never rush through important decisions of marriage. Make sure he is the one for you and you are the one for him. Love can be fluctuating between people, but trust in God that he will lead you to your true love. Dick and I were married for 61 years when he died very suddenly at age 92 with COVID-19. I still love him and look forward to being with him in heaven eternally.
The month of May is a precious time of the year. Our hearts feel more happiness as the weather becomes warmer and sunny. As the calendar repeats May every year let us never forget the joy we feel in our hearts as we enjoy every day of the month of May.
— Community Columnist Janet Baird Weisiger is a resident of Holland, residing in Vista Springs. Read her blog at jweisiger.blogspot.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Janet Weisiger: May blossoms again
