April Showers Bring ...

Before the May flowers, usually there are the cherry and magnolia and peach blossoms, then afterward their leaves; some years the fruit trees don't get the memo, and bud and leaf out at the same time instead of following the normal sequence.

Tri-color peach blossom, with its early leaf branch companions.

When the end of Winter temperatures yo-yo, freezing, then freakishly warm, before plummeting back to freezing, leaving the trees confused, so that the warmth-seeking leaves emerge on the same schedule as the chill-tolerant blossoms that typically precede, it doesn't make for the most picturesque scenarios, with the pinks and whites of the blossoms muted and muddled by the greens of the leaves. But the tree carries on, and by the end of the season it usually still manages to attract the insects to help do the important work of fruiting. The job gets done.

And so it is with life, too. Life changes happen, career changes happen. Ideally, blogs would be updated contemporaneously, recording the events for posterity in real time... But a post two months after an exit from BigLaw and more than four weeks into a shift to BigBanking still does the trick, right? A little out of order, but at the end of the day, the tardy entry still records for posterity the transition - a personally momentous decision to jump off the spinning rodent wheel, and into a slightly different, hopefully more humane, rodent obstacle contraption. Hard to tell yet if it's better or worse - different, slower, more manageable - so far.

Fingers crossed for a good outcome. And the rest of early Spring continues in its paces in the meantime. Green emerges triumphant over the bare brown of Winter, the planetary life forces surging on - only a few blossoms and leaves on a handful of tree species hunting at the blip of disruption to the usual rhythms. 

Early tulip baby.

Red Russian kale.

Pea shoot, emerging near cut remains of last year's stalk.

Hydrangea leaves emerging.

Apple tree seedling.

Hosta (?) shoots emerging.

Clematis, adopted and planted last Autumn. 

Blueberry leaf starts.

Chrysanthemum leaves.

[Edited April 12, 2022.]