Chapter 5 spring is coming

After the new year, after sorting out the New Year's cards, you will feel the kind of spring-looking mood that spring is coming. Looking at the almanac, we know that Minor Cold is on January 6th, and January 21st is Great Cold.It is the coldest time of the year.In fact, the northern side of the Japanese archipelago is being covered with thick snow, and the sky in the southern half is mostly gray with the snow about to fall.Of course, there are times when the sunshine of the New Year shines everywhere, but it will not last long. The gray sky will return immediately, and the cold air will follow. It will snow in a few days.

In the severe winter season, the cold air hits people, and it is a matter of course; in this situation, the mood of waiting for spring is something that anyone will have.Not only those living in snow-free Tokyo and Osaka, but even the people in the snowy countries of Hokkaido and Tohoku are still the same.In short, all people living in the Japanese archipelago covered by cold currents, no matter where there is snow or where there is no snow, as soon as the new year is over, they will feel the approach of spring and wait for it. I love this mood of waiting for spring.I live in Tokyo, although it is rare, I can still capture a little bit of spring information.This morning, I walked down to the courtyard from the writing room, and saw a red plum tree and another white plum tree covered with buds as small and hard as the tips of toothpicks.

I spent my childhood in a mountain village on the Izu Peninsula. There were many plum trees in the garden of my hometown, and white flowers bloomed in the early spring.There are no cherry trees or peach trees, only a small sea forest.Perhaps it is because I was familiar with plum trees when I was a child, and I still love plum blossoms even after half a century.Plum blossom, for me, has become a special flower. Today, the number of plum trees in the courtyard of my hometown has decreased, and they are old, and I can no longer see the pure white flowers of my childhood.Even though it is the same as the white flowers in the past, it is slightly yellow, not as white as the snowflakes chanted in "Manyoshu" and songs.

The author of the former song is Otomo, and the latter is Suruga Cainu.After reading this kind of waka, the pure white refreshing white plums will immediately come to mind. The plum trees in my hometown are all dead and old, but the only white plum tree next to the Tokyo study is still young, so the flowers are pure white. The plum tree puts out hard little buds prematurely and has not yet bloomed this season.It is at this moment when the flowers have not yet bloomed that a feeling of looking forward to spring is naturally cultivated.The yellow flowers of narcissus and the red flowers of camellia are probably the few flowers in this season.

At the end of last year and near the end of the new year, I looked up at Guili Palace. I didn’t see any flowers blooming in the vast garden, but only buds of falling frost red and cinnabar root, faintly shining in the corner of the vast garden. red light.This season, it seems that the buds of the trees are showing off their status instead of flowers. This is also the song of the big companion's family.The wild orange is the Zijinniu. I think the small red buds of the Zijinniu against the snow-capped scene may indeed have the value of walking on the snow. As I said before, I love the feeling of waiting for spring in the severe winter with almost no flowers.Every morning, sitting on the rattan chair on the porch in front of the writing room, I always find myself immersed in such sentiments.Right now, they are still small hard buds, but they are growing up little by little until the branches are full of white flowers. This feeling of waiting for spring has always been nurtured in the depths of my heart.

I travel abroad and always come back in early summer or mid-autumn.Of course, such a decision was not made for any reason, but a natural result.However, now I think about when, at the end of February or the beginning of March when there is already information about spring, but it is difficult to come, I will end my foreign travel and set foot on the land of Japan.At that time, I think I will deeply feel the subtlety of the changes in Japan's solar terms, and the delicate beauty of the seasonal scenery in Japan that changes its appearance accordingly. However, during the January, February, and March waiting for spring, the natural movement in the atmosphere is very complicated and subtle, and spring will never come smoothly.

Minor cold and severe cold are generally in early or mid-January. Therefore, January of the New Year is the coldest season of the year, and it lasts until the beginning of spring on February 4th.Of course, this is just a matter in the almanac, and it is not so well-behaved in reality.Sometimes the minor cold is colder than the major cold, and sometimes the minor cold is not so cold. It is not really cold for a while until the beginning of spring in February.No, rather than being cold for a while, it's more like this kind of situation. However, even though it is only written in the almanac, the word Lichun also contains an indescribable clarity.After the new year, spring is approaching; as spring is approaching, the mood of waiting for the arrival of spring will become active.The beginning of spring in the almanac arouses a kind of expectation: spring is really coming this time!

In fact, spring is always late, and winter is still long. However, it is true that spring is approaching step by step, but it is hard to see that it will speed up.This pace of spring is probably unique to Japan; it seems very inaccurate, but in fact it is unexpectedly accurate. People call the cold after the beginning of spring the remaining cold, but in fact it is far from the general cold called the remaining cold.During this period, both snowfall and the coldest cold air of the year will hit.However, even this kind of cold air gradually eased after nearly three months, to the extent that people both feel it and don't notice it.

However, even in March, spring still hasn't shown its face.Just get it right, the sunshine, the color of the sky and the appearance of the trees will unknowingly give people the feeling of early spring, and the remaining cold will become a veritable spring cold.In this way, at the same time, even those things that fall from the sky, the way they fall, will change somewhat.That is "spring snow", "light snow" and "spring graupel".In short, Chunhan will do everything possible to change his attitude, sometimes showing his face, and sometimes shrinking his body back.

In such a month of March, a cold current hit the central part of the Japanese archipelago, and it was the time when Nara held a water-drawing event on March 13.The Kinki area is strangely baptized by cold currents at this time of year.Also at this time, in my home in Tokyo, the white plum blossoms that started blooming in early March are in full bloom.Every year, when I see white plums in full bloom, I think of the records in the almanac again.So I found that it was roughly equivalent to the day of drawing water, or two or three days before and after it, and the temperature dropped in just two or three days, and it was very cold.Before my eyes, I saw the scene of pine torches illuminating the darkness in the halls of the ancient temples in Nara.It seems that maybe it is not illuminating the darkness, but illuminating the cold current.The cold spring of this season is indeed beyond doubt.

The white plums are in full bloom during the water-drawing season, but the red plums are only in full bloom.The white plums withered at the end of March, but the red plums entered April, and most of the withered flowers remained.When the white plums began to wither, the apricot and plum blossoms began to bloom, and finally spring officially came to the world. However, at the end of March or early April, when the plum blossoms in my house are in full bloom, there will be another cold snap.That was the season when the waves in Hira Bay were rough.Since ancient times, it has been rumored that when Biliang Damingshen was practicing and preaching the "Lotus Sutra", there was a strong wind and waves on Lake Biwa, and the cold air hit.In fact, at this time, Kyoto and Osaka will be hit by the last cold wave.Not only the Keihan area, but Tokyo as well. In this way, at about the same time as apricot and plum, peach trees also began to bloom.Almond trees have a shorter flowering period.I just saw the flowers bloom, and the spring breeze will blow them all night, or the birds will come, and they will become bare in an instant.Although Li Hua is not as hasty as Xing Hua, she is also short-lived.In comparison, the peach blossoms still have strong vitality, and they bloom until the season when the cherry blossoms change shifts. This year is probably similar to previous years. During January, February, and March, the cold currents will come and go across the Japanese archipelago, and the plum buds will grow little by little in the middle.Japan's nature, in the middle of preparing for spring, is very complicated and unpredictable; but overall, I am afraid that it still presents a trend that strictly follows established laws.Plum, apricot, plum, peach, and cherry are all waiting for the right time to appear on the spring stage accurately.