Springtime and asparagus are synonymous for me, the change of the seasons marked in rubber bands. At the end of winter my jar of rubber bands disappears, consumed by binding half used bags of sugar and picnic lunches. Just in time, the first asparagus appears at the farmers market. I don’t buy rubber bands, I buy asparagus. Thick blue rubber bands binding together each pound of asparagus, one rubber band at the top of the bunch the other at the bottom. Arthur loves asparagus so we easily go through six or seven pounds of it a week, which adds incrementally twelve to fourteen rubber bands back into the jar in my kitchen. It’s a few weeks into spring and I’m enjoying the proliferating springy mass of blue elastic.