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March 11, 2009

STEPHANIE SALTER: Just when the mind is going, the Tiny Ones come to the rescue

By Stephanie Salter The Tribune Star Wed Mar 11, 2009, 12:33 AM EDT

TERRE HAUTE — Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”

— The Talmud

In the timeless Puccini opera, “La Boheme,” the argument-prone lovers, Rodolfo and Mimi, sing a poignant duet about how they must part, but can’t bear to do it in winter.

“To be alone in winter,” they begin, “is a terrible thing! … But in the spring there is the sun for companion … Nobody is alone in April … One can talk to the lilies and the roses …”

That duet, which becomes a quartet, usually takes place on a dark stage with paper snow falling. Mimi is hunched and coughing with consumption, Rodolfo is heartsick, knowing he picks fights because he is poor and can’t provide a warm, healthy environment for Mimi.

In the relentless, bone-bruising cold, clinging to one another is all that either of them can manage. Something as wrenching as splitting up can be contemplated only with the promised fortifications of spring — bird song, blossoms, babbling fountains and warm breezes that spread “balm on human ills.”

I know what Mimi and Rodolfo mean.

Having just passed my fifth winter back home in Indiana, I have come to recognize the point in the season at which I am this-close to losing my mind. Really, that is not hyperbole. I mean, there is a time in late-winter when I nearly break with reality.

See, reality is, no matter how bad or prolonged the winter season, spring always follows. Always. It may be a short spring or a spring rudely interrupted, as was last year’s by a snow storm on Easter (Remember?). But spring always replaces winter.

When I am on the verge of winter psychosis, though, I forget “always.” The delusion starts in my cells and soul, then moves into my cognitive brain. A day dawns — bleak, gray, freezing, again — and I no longer believe that winter will end. Ever.

Nothing from my memory bank or stash of common sense helps. I can say aloud, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course winter will end. It always ends.”

The words do nothing.

I can even look through zip-up storage bins at my own shorts, gauzy skirts and sleeveless blouses, or in the closet at the sandals and flip-flops that have been gathering dust in the corner.

So what?

Just because summer came last year, I’m supposed to believe it will come again? Impossible. I am convinced nothing can break through and conquer the all-powerful winter beast.

Then, just as I am about to lose my grip on sanity, the Tiny Ones begin to show themselves.

Pointed, little, half-inch shoots of daffodil plants poke up from the ground, sometimes piercing right through dead brown leaves that block their route to the sun.

Fuzzy little bullets of buds line up along the delicate branches of tulip trees.

Baby cardinals hop out of the hedges that line my driveway and jump around on the concrete, then careen back into the bushes.

Tiniest of all the Tiny Ones, perfectly formed little crocus simply appear in lavender puffs on a lawn that is still the color of straw.

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