March 19, 2019. Madison, Mississippi. Spring.

Magic happens in Spring. A house close by has a hedge green all winter. The hedge is a semi circle in front of the house. I look at it every day. The half circle runs the whole width of the house, which impresses me. And it is always well tended. But yesterday that hedge was amazing. The whole hedge was bright red. It appeared to be on fire. The azaleas had bloomed and are beautiful. I had not known the hedge was an azalea as we normally are not here in March. But now I know. In the morning, from my bed I see the sun rising across the water. I face east. I can see the new buds coming on the branches outside my window. And my own azalea bushes are in bloom too. The pampas grasses down the road were cut in the late fall. Now spikes have appeared from the bases of the plants. The crepe myrtles are putting up shoots. Spring has arrived in all it's glory. Years ago, when the boys were young, we bought a bag of what looked like colored stones at the toy store. When we got home, we put the stones into an empty fish bowl and added water. And we watched. It was magical. The stones grew spikes. We always knew it was not magic but it always seemed to me it was. Each time you got another bag of stones, the growth was different. No two sets were the same. I still do not know what that bag of stones really was but we always assumed it was a bag of chemicals that grew when water was added. Every Spring I feel the same as watching those stones grow. It is magic right in front of my eyes. No Spring is exactly the same. But every Spring is wonderful. In the south, Spring has sprung.