All the Dust of Our Lives

Springtime in Savannah is a mixed tote of emotions.  

Obviously, there’s the ecstasy: Where else on earth at this moment does the breeze caress like an adoring angel with a Southern drawl? What worldly worry is not dissolved by the scent of tea olive trees wafting under a gentle sun scantily cloaked in gauzy clouds?

April apparently brings out the euphoric bumblebee in all of us; yesterday I saw a grown man frolicking amongst the clover in Daffin Park.

Which brings us to the agony: Our sinuses may have recovered from the neon yellow rails of pollen we inadvertently snorted during our plant friends’ annual sexfest, but there are still nuisances of the season to suffer.  

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside without a hanky or wash your car without ending up looking exactly the same ten minutes later, here comes another mess. 

Surely you’ve noticed gobs of crunchy brown confetti blanketing the streets and mucking up windshields, entire mats of them clogging the storm drains. (Pretty sure that when Aristotle said nature abhors a vacuum he didn’t mean she throws litter around like those awful drivers on Abercorn who toss their fast food bags out the window.)

These vexatious wormy curlicues are called catkins, and they’re the spent male members of our beloved oaks. FYI, oak trees are monecious, meaning they contain both genders and so seed themselves; no need for any of the complications of coupling, so independent and evolved! 

Catkins everywhere

Having released their reproductive payload upon the tree’s flowery lady parts and all over everything else, catkins shrivel up and flutter to the ground en masse, as if the trees are in a real big hurry to wash that man right outta their Spanish moss hair.

Party’s over kids, time to tidy up and start this cycle over again!