Hunger

I am hungry. Sooo very hungry.
   The sunny arcs of springtime air drew me off my couch, where I was happily napping away with the cat, to go outside. Yawning, stretching like a bear coming out of hibernation, I began scouring the yard, for anything growing. I wasn't necessarily looking for something in particular, but the more I walked, the more I stared at my barren, moist garden bed impregnated with seeds that have yet to sprout, the more I tripped over thick hairy clumps of wild garlic sprouting from the lawn...
...the hungrier I got.
I wanted something, something green and fresh, to rip from the soil and shove into my mouth. I can't explain the visceral urge. Maybe I'm not as far removed from Neanderthal humanity as previously thought. Maybe the small pleasure of warming sunlight hitting the back of my head, even as winds still give me a chill for fleece, tick off the timer in my primitive brain centers.
    Tick tock, time for greens, tick tock, time to eat, clean out the body..

 

 I find the first flower of the year, a Siberian iris, peeking above leaf mold and smiling. At me. At spring sun. I smile back, then scowl, thinking that I could certainly not eat this flower, and right now it''s of no use to me. Damn.

 

What I was truly looking for was more like this:

 

Which I did not find. Not yet. On hands and knees, I uncovered the ostrich ferns from their wintry leaf mulch, and counted budding fiddleheads. At least 15. Maybe I could get a small meal next week...(stomach grumbling)

   My eyes pored over the damp green earth. Nothing, nothing at all. Not even a dandelion to rip up. I became depressed, then angry, then just hungrier (aren't these the stages of loss acceptance??) WHY is nothing growing yet?

   Wandered back to the garden, and scratched the earth around my asparagus corms. No, not even those bastions of spring were ready to awaken from winter slumber. Ugh. I gave up.

   My want of fresh green things not satiated, I ate a handful of ham (don't ask) and ripped open a bag of snap peas from the Asian market. At least I could pretend spring had come, right?

   Of course today, as I woke, the rain was pouring down in torrents. Outside my bedroom window, I counted four more irises, and noted that the perennial flowers grew probably another inch overnight. Maybe tomorrow I can have asparagus. And maybe pea tendrils next week. Just maybe.

   For now, I'm going to murder some wild garlic for dinner, and probably that baby dandelion I found growing along the patio too. For good measure.