“When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade,” is a popular phrase often chanted as an antidote to adversity. I doubt it could offer much hope for tree pollen season. Between oak trees and pine the Cape’s afternoon sea breeze from the south brings a backlit cloud of dust coating everything with a thin yellow film. No matter what color car one drives it turns the surface into a notepad. Just use your finger, leave a message.
Before the morning commute, a swish of the wipers is needed to clear the windshield. The dashboard wears a thin coating even though the windows are shut. This stuff can find its way into anything. Long before the pandemic, face masks were needed to mow a lawn without ingesting it.
Allergy sufferers pray for steady downpours even on weekends just to try and stay ahead of this pollen “invasion.” To wrap up this rant, there isn’t anyone who looks forward to tree pollen season in late May, early June. As climate change warms the world, trees produce more pollen and release it earlier, more bad news.
But, for those creatives in the reading audience looking to make some “modern art” there are images to be made in this season of yellow dust. Certainly photographs of pollen messages, calligraphed across the sides of cars are interesting. But if one really wants to release their inner Jackson Pollock, head out to the nearest storm drain during or right after a steady rain. Pollen floats across puddles looking like marbled paper on the end sheets of fancy books. Standing water takes on the look of contour lines on a topographic map. A curious shutterbug will find a lot to photograph.
Despite the rain, pollen will soon return, coating everything again and on it goes until one late June day it dissipates and fades away, right about the time tourist season heats up. By then, it is time to make lemonade.
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