We put the top down and drive 55 on Lee Highway to Roanoke. White flowering trees decorate the ribbon of road in cones of cottony blooms. Forsythia erupt in saffron tangles.
Halfway to Salem, where the road is fringed more with forest than farms, the white blossoms fade away. They are replaced with the fuscia-nubbed stems of redbuds. I first see one or two peeps of pink blossoms amongst the naked brown trees of the wood. Then dozens. Scores. I see swaths of hot pink.
We’re out of the woods and back into farmland. Here’s a weeping willow with tender new leaves — the first spring green. Chartreuse strands sweep the ground, like a gnarled crone in a fairy tale, hunched over a pond. So many trees are leafing out as we come down the mountain! Here’s a magenta tulip magnolia opening its apple sized blossoms. Here’s a hedge of golden forsythia, taller than me, wide as a Volkswagen, and spraying strands of gold like firework trails along the full length of the property line. Here are tidy gold mounds of the same shrub, trimmed into bright globes at the entrance to a school.
Now the pale pink of cherry blossoms, presented on delicate airy branches, lifted to the sky, like gifts in the palm of the tree’s hand.
I sneeze from the pollen. Wisps of hair at my ears and neck — the strands that have come loose from my hat — whip in the wind. My husband taps his fingers on the gear shift in time with the music.
We bought a convertible Mazda Miata a couple of years ago, and it is an endless source of joy.
Butterfly Mind 