THE GREENING!

I am tired of winter. Tired of the gray and the wet and the cold. I am a summer person - I love the sunshine and the heat, sweating in the garden, margaritas in the front porch swing, all the GREEN. I am tired of winter, but I have hope. Winter is leaving, giving way to warmer weather, yielding to spring.

I call it "the greening", and few things cause me so much delight. The greening has begun! Driving from Union City to Martin last weekend, we passed through the river bottoms, and I saw it. That's where it always starts - the river bottoms. It's one of those things you notice first in your peripheral vision - you won't see it if you look straight at it. The trees are different, almost imperceptibly so. Almost, but not quite. Something has changed. If you look through the bare-limbed trees crowded in the soggy river bottoms - not at the trees but through them - you'll detect the faintest blush of red. The tiny twigs at the end of the naked brances are swelling. In a few more weeks, the rosy blush will give way to a greenish haze, as if the light sifting through the trees has been filtered through a chartreuse lens. Then, leaves...tiny pale leaves at first, quickly giving way to an explosion of green.

I am weary of winter, but I am encouraged. Winter is slipping away - the greening has begun!