{ the jaunty magpie }

It's Spring! It's Spring! Get your allergy medication prescriptions filled! Of course that's not the only reason spring is worthy of such J'adore and extra tissues. It's a time of rebirth, renewal, when the winter-swept branches, bare and spindly, suddenly come to life with little buds that unfurl into leaves. Flowers start to bloom. There's color in the world.

I know this is supposedly a blog about style and fashion, but it's not only about what we wear, we need to fully engage our environment and absorb inspiration whenever we can. Style can be about the way we perceive the world, a lens we gaze through to take in the concepts that feel most relevant. On a rare sunny day in mid-spring, I took a walk through our own backyard, just to take stock of what was in bloom and see how the plants were doing. For all the world's aches, pains and itches it just can't scratch, Nature doesn't let it get to her. Maybe it's harder to grow life anew, with more pollutants in the air, more asphalt to hide the soil, but it finds a way, however celebrated or anonymous. One of my favorite poets, Emily Dickenson describes spring best:  

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

Jaunty Fine Print: Photos of the Le Jardin de Jaunty by Denise Sakaki