are we all spoiled?
Spring smells good this year. I understand why folks have always wanted to bottle the scent of various flowers, because I wouldn't mind smelling lilacs, say, in October. The same thing is true for colors, I think, though of course now we can make any color we want any time of year. It doesn't make us appreciate spring flowers any less, I don't think, but maybe it changes the nature of the appeal. I thought of it a few weeks ago when I saw an orange plastic bit among some not-yet-blooming daffodils: imagine what life was like when you couldn't see yellow from November to April! Well, not really; there were always egg yolks.
I wouldn't mind if I were reduced to using only natural dyes, which are (as I understand it) necessarily more muted than the substances from which they're derived. But even as it is the pink azalea that started blooming yesterday is pretty exciting, and so is just the green of the leaves closing in. I'm easily amused, I suppose.