Unquiet
Things

I’ll admit, I never had much of an appreciation for spring until I moved up North to New Jersey.  Until that time, I had spent the last twenty years in the semi-tropics and spring was, at best, laughable. There were no gusty lions or meek lambs and April showers most certainly did not lead to May flowers. It was only the paralyzing heat on the asphalt as soon as February passed and the same line of palm trees as far as the eye could see, stretching to the horizon and beyond. Palm trees and heat death forever. The end.

In New Jersey, however, there was actual winter. With snow and ice and cold and itchy sweaters and people always stealing your parking spot that you spend at least an hour digging for your own damn self, and angst, oh the angst.  I grew to dread the oncoming autumn because I knew it heralded 3-4+ months of pure, unadulterated, shivering misery.

But spring, oh my–spring!  Spring became a wonderful time of surprising magics. Such little things, I suppose…but things, having grown up in the south, that I didn’t even know to look for or expect. Every afternoon when I arrived home from work there would be something new blooming in the yard, budding and blossoming in the trees.  Bunny rabbits, all over the place on my morning walks!  The coolest, most lovely breeze swishing and swirling through the house on an early April morning (the same morning, where, down south, the AC would probably already be running full blast).

And so, my infatuation with spring began.  And what to wear during this time of birth and renewal and the disappearance of winter’s ghostly remains?  Well, I take my cue from celebrated haiku master Matsuo Basho:

From all these trees –
in salads, soups, everywhere –
cherry blossoms fall

See below for a few ensembles showcasing riotous blooms and delicate blossoms, and yes–even color, bright explosions of it (hidden against and amongst a lovely sea of black, of course!) After all, today, spring is here, and I will be the gladdest thing under the sun…for approximately two days. Now that I am back in the southern swampland, summer will no doubt arrive before the week is through, and that’s when we wear all black and lock ourselves into climate-controlled mourning for the next nine months.

[EDIT: Click on the images for more details. BUT sadly details for many of these ensembles are no longer available, as the site used to make them sold themselves to something else and shut down. RIP POLYVORE]