Springtime. My students keep asking to hold class outside. I keep telling them that just walking between buildings brings on tears and stops the breath – not from the overwhelming beauty of the season but from the overwhelming pollen in the air. Right now I’m frantic over itching eyes and I haven’t been outside in the past five hours . . .
I still recall the day I became a hayfever victim. We were walking the kids down a Springfield (MO) street, enjoying a balmy spring evening much like this one. Approaching a lilac bush – one of my life-time favorites – heavy with blooms and scent, I breathed in deeply. But before we had even passed by, I could hardly pull enough air through my severely congested lungs to sneeze. I almost cried.
I have always loved warm weather and the wild profusion of colors in spring-time trees and shrubs, flower-beds and meadows. Now I am reduced to increasingly vain attempts not to hate the particular beauty that is accompanied by pollen.
Life in a fallen world. Just one more reason to look forward to a new body and a new earth! Ah, to breathe in lilac once again with impunity and delight . . .
Oh that is so sad! I've always prided myself on not having any allergies (as though somehow it was my doing), but to think that I might get them when I'm older scares the life out of me!
ReplyDeleteThis has been a particularly stuffy spring for me--I can't seem to get rid of this horrid cold. To think that this is what allergy-sufferers always endure is a pitiful thought.
--amy
Thank you, Amy. I was definitely looking for sympathy! Anyone else? I'm waitin'!
ReplyDelete:::after having spent the morning cleaning out my grandmother's blooming and leaf-molded flowerbeds and passing the lilacs several times today:::
ReplyDeleteI dknow whad your talkindg aboud. Poooooor thindg.