May already!

May is my favorite month. Maybe because it is my birthday month, I always feel a sense of renewal in May, as well as an acknowledgment of the passage of time. That last bit could be rough, and while it has been in some years, lately I'm finding peace and curiosity within that container.

We have fireflies again, and young birds, and old birds fussing after the young ones. The jasmine we planted on our fence that somehow survived the Big Freeze (but was cut down to its roots as a result) has flourished and is in bloom! At Juiceland yesterday I was struck by the magnificence of their oleander. When my kids were little we had white oleander in our yard, and a concerned babysitter warned us that it was deadly if eaten, which only made me appreciate it more. I later learned that oleander was the forest plant to regrow in the scorched earth of post-war Hiroshima. Renewal, indeed.