My Allergist Assures Me Spring Is Around the Corner

Yes, I said allergist.  Even though snow flurries fly as I write this, he says the early trees are out, pollen wise.  And a clump of lavender snow crocus are blooming in a sheltered spot beside my water garden.  The tips of bulbs are emerging where the snow has receded.  Ah spring…for one who dearly loves to garden and is addicted to the glories of new life, I’m terribly allergic to it.  Also to summer, fall…right up until that first killing frost.  In a battle to leave the  house and be out of doors in my beautiful green and pollen filled valley, I’ve endured a regimen of shots, four at a time, every 1-2 weeks for two decades.  And will, it seems forever more.  I’m also on several meds during pollen season.  But it’s well worth it for the joy of being outdoors during  the beauteous reign of the flowers.  No where on earth is more beautiful than the Shenandoah Valley nestled amid the spectacular Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains.  God’s country, we call it, if the developers don’t completely overrun all the pastoral beauty with yet another sprawl of houses and businesses.   Stop!  Preserve and conserve this rare place.

Back to the shots, yes, I’ve made progress over the years and am much better than I was, but I’m not one of my allergist’s greatest success stories.  He has declared me among the top ten percent of allergy sufferers in the nation.  I’d rather be among the top ten percent of honored authors.  But it was the severity of my allergies that forced me indoors for much of the growing season and consequently are partly responsible for my leap into novel writing in the first place.  And that love of nature transferred itself to my stories in the descriptive details I’m praised for.

During the worst time of the year, commonly known as mid-summer through ragweed season, when I’m under what I call ‘under house arrest’ I gaze out my window to the garden, meadows, wooded hills and beyond these the blue swell of the Alleghenies and I write.  Not that I don’t write all the times of the year, but particularly then.  Even if I were to miraculously overcome all of my allergies I would still write.  But if not for allergies, I’d probably still be running my small herb business, making wreaths, dried arrangements and potpourri…which my former allergist declared is responsible for my developing every allergy latent within me.    So, I battle on with the shots in hopes of having less sneezy, itchy-eyed,  so congested I get vertigo, times in my garden(s).
Never give up on anything or anyone you truly love.  Fight on and find a way.   It is now fifteen years since I began this novel writing journey and what a journey it’s been.   And the gardens are still with me, the mountains still there.  And this year, the garden will be the best ever!


*Pics of snow crocus, the valley in early spring and my garden in a sunbeam.