15 April 2011

Scandinavian Spring

Scandinavian spring is a shy little thing. Wandering through the woods these days I have been reminded how delicate and hesitant she is, how beautiful and fragrant.

 

After this very long and hard winter, which we spent hibernating under thick whiteness, we are all - humans, beasts and plants - so impatient to greet the warmth of the sun that we are not wasting any moment.



While wandering through the forest this morning I was thinking of this amazing epic novel called Independent People, written by the Icelandic Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness and published in 1934. Although the main theme of the novel is independence and what is worth giving up to achieve it, the narrative is saturated with divine, airy lyricism, turning this complex novel into a poem in prose.

Laxness's depiction of the spring night and her delicate character were sounding in my head all morning:

"It was after midnight, wearing slowly on for one o'clock. The spring night reigned over the valley like a young girl. Should she come or should she not come? She hesitated, stole forward on her toes - and it was day. The feathery mists over the marshes rose twining up the slopes and lay, like a veil, in innocent modesty about the mountain's waist."













How is spring going on in your part of the world?

13 comments:

  1. Wow, beautiful, beautiful - the photos and the prose. You just made my day:):)

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  2. Wow, that is so beautiful. And those words - no one writes like that anymore, huh? Maybe I need to read that book. As for spring where I am, NYC - there are a few trees around,and now there are leaves. Haha. Thanks for this wonderful post.

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  3. Here in San Diego it's 75 and sunny, and I just came home from a walk at the beach. Life is good!

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  4. Those crocuses and snowdrops are so pretty. You must be slightly ahead of us here in Canada. today we work up to fresh snow!

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  5. Morgen, I thought we were behind everyone else!!

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  6. So very pretty. Just the thing to balance me after a very long staff meeting.

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  7. Oh, how beautiful! Spring is fully here in the southern US. Most of the trees have leafed out and the earliest flowers are already finished for the year.

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  8. looks so lovely!
    yay for spring :)

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  9. amazing Colchicum pics! and all the pics in fact are just amazing, everything pops out of them! they remind me of my Romanian spring, here in India it goes unnoticed although trees are in bloom, but it's abt 35C!

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  10. Very pretty, crocuses are my favorite spring bulb.

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  11. Lovely.
    Do you have any saffron crocuses in that mix? ;-)

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  12. HarmlessColor, I think it's a tiny bit too cold for it here!

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