When The Dogwoods Bloom...

 Seems I tend to struggle photographically when the Spring season arrives. Certainly, that should never happen as the natural world begins to awaken from a winter's slumber and the sun climbs higher in the sky, well, that should be motivation enough.  Even so, I often find it difficult to sustain any degree of motivation to explore and photograph this newness of life..but...when the Dogwoods bloom...

From time to time as Spring progresses, I make time to stroll across the fields behind my home. It is there I discover the first signs of what is yet to come as a myriad of small wild flowers begin to form clusters of natural bouquets scattered amongst the debris of winter. Someday I will learn all the names of these small wonders of nature. Until then, I am at peace with simply enjoying their colorful flavors. Sometimes I bend low to the ground to steal a closer look and will even snap a few photos simply because I can. Rarely do I ever do anything with those snapshots, but the process serves a purpose to get me back into the swing of being a photographer again...at least until the Dogwoods bloom.

Eventually, the trees begin to show signs of coming back to life with a few buds and first fruits of leaf formation. I am always amazed at how slow the transformation process appears. A few trees sprout sooner than others and are often subject to enduring a late season freeze. Somehow or another, they always survive and turn a brilliant green in their own time. Cherry tree blooms come early, as do other ornamental trees, but the Dogwoods hold off a spell. I suppose they instinctively know the time is not right, unlike the Redbuds whose pink and lavender blooms harbinger a sign of how the best is yet to come...that would be when the Dogwoods bloom.

Some of the Maple trees produce their helicopter seeds early, but most hold off until the their leaves are well formed before having their branches hang low with the weight of millions of winged seeds. At the slightest breeze, the sky is suddenly filled with flashes of twisting and flapping seeds as they wing their way to the ground and into my gutters which are readily clogged by their numbers. Someday I'll put gutter guards on to prevent such a thing...but not at least until after the Dogwoods bloom.

The season muddles along often with stormy weather and breezy winds shaking the landscape from its long slumber and yet the Dogwoods are not here. The sky will turn cobalt blue with nary a cloud floating across its face and the Dogwoods seem to wait for such skies as their blooms were made to reach upwards toward the blue. 

My camera may have lain mostly dormant for several months and my creative heart along with it. Even after the first tantalizing hints of a change in seasons, those dormant doldrums are slow to awaken. I may spend a few moments lost in the hopefulness of what is to come, slow to capture even the most modest of images. 

With inner stirrings biding their time...still drowsy, still not fully ready to venture forth in earnest, I wait...then as sudden as the thunder of a Spring storm...oh, the Dogwoods, they have bloomed.