Cusp Season
Tulips are cowards. Daffodils brave it first and are my heroes. Long broad rows glowed yellow the other week in fields north of Seattle, an expansive carpet of impossible light. The adjacent tulips waited, only daring an abundance of common green until a more consistent and assured spring evoke their showy colors and pedal architectures. Daffodils are comparatively flimsy and less showy; I have to resist thinking of them as cheap. First movers, they are the risk takers. Walking to work the other day, they stood as harbingers of warmer days among the snow flurries. They navigate potential adversities, (frost, snow, cold rain), for few rewards. It's safer, more reasonable to wait. No one faults tulips. At some point, late winter becomes early spring. There was a clear dividing line between the contrasting expanses of yellow and green. In a few weeks, as the former begins to fade, the later will start to dazzle. Mesmerized, I will forget the daffodils and the sustenance they provided during cooler, more mundane and less hopeful days. They pierce through pervasive grey for no other reason than they can't help themselves despite knowing that, once again, they will be overshadowed by the abundance of summer that they nonetheless harkened.
