Although it’s early in the season, I think the geraniums are out for good because it has been such a warm winter and early spring. There was a time when I didn’t know that geraniums are perennials. I rebought them every year like pansies. Now come November I take them in and keep them on the kitchen counter by the window where they bloom all winter long in their popping red. The children don’t like their peculiar smell and my husband finds that they take up too much space on the countertop. But I can’t bring myself to let the geraniums freeze to death in the fall and then rebuy new ones every spring. Not only is it wasteful and feeds that industrial machine, but I like feeling the circularity of the seasons via the geraniums. There is comfort in knowing that some things don’t change, that, come fall, the geraniums will be back inside with us.