Time Rolls On

It's that time of year.

The air is LOADED with fragrance, which I am able to enjoy for the second year in 20, favor of the prescription drug "Astelin."

Astelin is my bosom buddy.

The orchards are rich in bloom, and the temps are moderate -- in the high 50's. What the harvest will be like, I don't know. It's warm enough for the bees to work the orchards, but it's been really rainy. And dim.

Do the bees go around in little black and yellow rain gear with flashlights?
A month ago, when ice was thick on the swimming pool, I kept telling myself, "Another month, and it will be Spring, and the almonds will be in bloom.

And now they are.

It's a bittersweet Spring, though. I just talked to my mother, who is due to be 82 this July. She was in good spirits, but recounted to me two different and rather disturbing tales.

Her weather has been below freezing, with snow and freezing rain befouling their town. She told me that she was still chilled through because she had decided to walk "out the road" to get some medical maintenance supplies this morning.

"Where did you have to walk, Mom?"

"Oh, I can't remember, but they didn't have what I needed, so I had to walk somewhere else. And then they sent me to another place. My goodness, I haven't had to walk beside the road for a long, long time."

Okay, I know that town, and the places you might have to walk along side the road ... are not places that you want to walk along side the road on the narrow gravel berms.

And the places that you might go for medical supplies are far, far apart.

"And oh, I was so embarrassed. I fell, just the next house up the street. I didn't even know I fell, I just found myself on the sidewalk. Must have been a soft, soft landing."

Now, is it melodrama? Or ...

Then she told me she missed Mass yesterday morning. "I was out in the country," she said. "I went out there to meditate, and was all the way to Thompsontown (45 minutes away), and by the time I got back, I was late for Mass. But I didn't know if I dreamed it, or if it really happened."

I don't know, either.

But my question is: what was my sister doing while Ma got lost in the country, or while she walked all over town?