dancing with the daffodils

He showed up at the precisely appointed hour. Right on the dot. If I had a chiming grandfather clock, it would've been chiming. Six o'clock.

I have come to expect this, but I did not expect daffodils.

In my mind, I quickly thought: Did I tell him that I love daffodils? That I rarely fight the urge to buy them every time I see them? That I once sat in a field of daffodils in Belgium at Easter time?

Did I tell him that daffodils make me happy, just by their yellowness? Did I mention the Wordsworth poem?

In my mind, I was smiling this huge, silly grin because I wasn't sure I had told him all that, but here he was, standing with a vase of daffodils on my doorstep. My spring flower. My happy flower. My dare-to-remember-that-it-can-be-warm-outside flower.

But apparently, my face did not smile.

Apparently, my face said: Oh dear Lord, what is that pitiful bouquet? Where are my two dozen roses, the overdone flower of affection?

But that is not it. That is not what I meant at all.

Face, get it together. Communicate what the rest of us is thinking and feeling. That's your job.

Now, looking at these daffodils on my dining room table—looking at them, my heart with pleasure fills / And dances with the daffodils.

That's from a poem, by the way. Which I'll just go ahead and put in here because I'm fairly rippling with excitement that spring is next week. Spring is less than a week away, actually. Spring is in six days. We should have a countdown.

And I have daffodils to remind me of this springtime goodness.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.