May arrives the way it always does — not asking permission, already here before I’ve finished deciding how I feel about April.
The dogwoods did their thing again. The azaleas, as promised, were briefly extravagant.
I have now seen this happen enough times that I should be used to it, and I am not.
There is something about this particular month that refuses to become familiar. The warmth that still surprises. The long evenings. The stubborn insistence of everything that grows on growing again.
I am a year older than I was the last time May came through. I know some things I didn’t know then. I have lost some things I didn’t know I would miss.
The porch is the same porch. The light on the water is the light on the water.
I sit outside longer than I planned and think: I got here.
Not triumphantly. Not without cost.
Just: I got here, and May is still doing this, and that is sufficient, and I am glad.