I am an early riser. Was up this Saturday morning at 6:00 am. Knitted some, padded around, wrote a letter. Finally gave into what I really wanted to do: dig in the dirt. Checked out my crocuses, tulips, irises, chives: all early bloomers. Planted my peas, as they love the cold.

I am a late bloomer, however. I'm only just starting to get a notion of what I am, what I like, what I want to do with myself. Much as I love the early buds and blooms, I sympathize more with the second crop of lettuce, the squash, the kale, the lavender, the gentian:

Fringed Gentian

God made a little gentian;
It tried to be a rose
And failed, and all the summer laughed.
But just before the snows
There came a purple creature
That ravished all the hill;
And summer hid her forehead,
And mockery was still.
The frosts were her condition;
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North evoked it.
"Creator! shall I bloom?"

-Emily Dickinson