Day 569 Spring, a time for reflection and renewal

Spring time is such a glorious time of year.  I can finally begin to feel the warmth of the sun on my face once again.  At long last I can shake off the cold and the funk that comes with it during the long winter months. Springtime smells so fresh, and new, and it holds such promise for what is to come!

While I love the blues of the ocean first and foremost, I love the greens of spring and summer almost as much.  I am an outdoors girl at heart, which is part of the craziness that STILL can catch me off guard..."Holy Crapola!  I live in freakin' Beijing, China! A monstrosity of a city of 22+ million! And I am halfway across the world!"  

I can tell you this much, just in the last week or two, I can feel the happy coming back :-)  It is due, in large part, to the fact that Spring has officially sprung in the 'jing!

Beijing is FINALLY waking up from her winter
slumber and the BNDS campus has come alive
and is in full bloom!  I like how Jade and Rob
chose to spend their prep period :)

We have been blessed with some beautiful blue
skies, clean air and the fragrance of magnolia trees...

And cherry blossoms...

And Momma K's favorite...hundreds of lilac bushes!

Every day I pick a fresh sprig on my way back
from the canteen.  My classroom smells heavenly!
The miniature paper kite was a gift from one
of my students this week- so sweet of her :)
Seraph knows how happy I am now that spring has sprung!

There are all varieties of flowering trees, and
Beijing has done a beautiful job of beautifying
their city of 22+ million.  Before moving here, I
was afraid that I was moving to a concrete jungle.
That simply is not true, there are beautiful parks
and green spaces at every turn. It does make me :-)

Early iris, daffodils, hyacinth, crocus and tulips
are beginning to pop up.  I can't help but snap
photos of all the beautiful flowers. 

And now, I am going to ask you to indulge me for a minute...

With spring in the air, and with all the flowers and trees blooming, I have had a pang of "what used to be."  I blame it on smelling the lilac bushes here, as I had planted lilac bushes outside my dining room window back home. I have been flooded with memories as of late.

 For those of you who do not know me well, I come from a very small town in east central Indiana.  My hometown folk could all reside in my apartment building- not even kidding.  I raised my family on a mini farm with forty acres, where we were surrounded by corn and soybean fields.  I had a vegetable garden, an herb garden, and I loved planting flowers. LOTS of flowers.  I just love to 'make things pretty' as my mother would say.

When we sold 'the big house' and built our little log cabin further up in our woods, I wanted to create a peaceful retreat, a place for the grown kids to come back for a visit, and to stay in the 'love shack' behind our cabin.  

The front of our property had early flowers that bloomed.

The side of the cabin had a working lighthouse.
When the girls went on dates, I turned the lighthouse
on when I went to bed.  When they got home (by
curfew!) I would hear them open the door by the
master bedroom to turn off the light.  I would
check the clock (you know this Momma K!) and
then I could rest easy knowing they were home safe.

The backyard was all landscaped in pea gravel, rocks, trees
and flowers.  Off the cabin's back porch, we built a 15' x 40'
koi pond with a waterfall, and beyond that was the love shack.

I built a 'dock' with pilings, that connected the log cabin to the
 love shack- as a tribute to our sailing life. There was an antique
lobster pot, and buoys that we would pick up in our sailing travels.
Yes, I really built the dock by myself- I love power tools :-)

I had a large potted palm, and a crab pot given to

us by our friends, Ken & Fran from Hatteras Island.

It was also a reminder of Florida, and every winter

we spent on the sailboat.

It was beautiful and peaceful in the woods, listening to the waterfall.

I was very proud of what we had created together.

I learned how to landscape a water garden, too, with all varieties
of water lillies, water iris, and other plants (and frogs- lots of frogs!)

It is hard for my Chinese babies to fathom that I lived in a log
cabin in a woods before I moved to Beijing.  They just can't
imagine that places or homes like this even exist in the world.

Nor can they fathom that their psychology teacher
is a sailor....

And that she lived on a sailboat for five months
each winter with her husband and her cat, Willis T.

And that she sailed across the ocean on her sailboat;
like that time we sailed to the Bahamas Islands.
"You are so brave", my Chinese babies say.

But, things changed.

Times changed. 

Fast forward two years..  

The log cabin was sold, I filed for divorce, and landed halfway across the world on planet China.  

And then I have to agree with my Chinese babies, I really am so brave, afterall.

While this may hurt some people, I cannot say I have regrets about where I am now. I do have regrets about how I handled things. However, this move to China has been about my own personal growing pains, and learning to come to terms with myself and my past.  All of it- clear back to my childhood. Growing pains are called just that for a reason- it is painful.  I have shed more tears in the last two years than I did in the first fifty years, and that is no exaggeration.  But by golly, I am getting there.

Back to my happy place.

I can honestly say that in spite of the painful times, I have also experienced tremendous joy and peace in coming to China.  I am so blessed to be able to see and do all the things I have done in these last two years....and the fifty years before that.  It has been an incredible ride, all in all, this thing called life.

So I keep snapping pictures of posies on campus,

...and in my neighborhood.

I breathe in the smell of lilacs, and magnolias,
and cherry blossoms, and the beautiful
CLEAN AIR, and I thank God that I am
right where I am, at this point of my life.

And while I look around me, and reminisce about
digging in the dirt, and working in my flower beds
or vegetable garden, I realize that while spring time
may look similar to what was once 'home', I am in
a different part of the world now. Here in China,
spring is celebrated by bringing your birds out
into the fresh air and sunshine.
Old Chinese men do love their song birds :)

Spring in the 'jing also means it is time to
take your pet turtle out for a stroll- you
wouldn't see that in Indiana!  I have to
wonder, just how LONG of a walk is it
to take your pet turtle out for a stroll???

My friend Carlos took this photo and the previous
one, so I cannot take credit.  He came out of his
apartment building the other afternoon to find his
 neighbors killing and dressing two chickens
in the apartment complex courtyard! While
I would expect to see that on the farm- it was a
shock to see in a city apartment complex!  I only
wish they had butchered the rooster that wakes me
 up every morning at about 4:30am.  I can't find
 where the damn thing lives- and believe me,
I HAVE LOOKED! Y'all know how much I
HATE roosters- I can't believe one lives near me :-(

But really, the true sign of spring in the 'jing is the diapers come off from underneath the split pants!

Which means one thing...

Cats, and dogs, and babies, and children, and adults, and old folks are back to pissing and sh****ng on the streets and sidewalks once again.  UGH. I dodged about a seven year old kid taking a dump on the sidewalk in my courtyard on my way home from school this afternoon.  I know he lives in my building, and he wasn't steps from the front door.

Seriously.

Awww, sweet spring....what a glorious time of year :-)

G'nite, y'all!

(This was a poster that advertised a lecture
I gave to the National School kids last week-
at least I think that is what it says!)