I’m still not great with my new camera. At least it’s warm outside now so that my hands don’t freeze while I fumble with the settings. I finally ordered the lens I’ve been saving for; it should arrive this week. I am eager for a fixed focal length and to be able to open the aperture as much as I want to. I worried I wouldn’t get the lens in time for spring flowers, but I think it will be just in time for the tulips, redbud, dogwoods, lilac, and everything else that follows.
FINALLY. The first day of spring has arrived! Daffodils pop all over town, forsythia canes begin to bloom, and I even saw a dogwood show some white blossoms in our neighborhood. Chartreuse leaf buds fatten on trees and shrubs, and bright green goldenrod leaves shoot up through the leaf litter. I have awaited this day since the first cold of November.
Just after lockdown began, I went for a run. I burst into tears as I ran by tulips that had just opened, and cherry trees in bloom. Their beauty was more than I could bear as I wondered, “Are we going to run out of food? We don’t have a survival plan. Are we all going to die? What does this mean for humanity?” Pink blossoms quivered in sunlight, and I wept.
That was almost a year ago. Flowers and sky, sunshine and water got me through a lot of the pandemic in 2020. When fall arrived, and flowers dropped, and leaves dropped, and temperatures dropped, we moved indoors. I watched the world turn brown. We got snow, which is pretty, and ice, which is pretty, but the winter world is cold and desolate, and after nearly a year of no socializing, no meals in restaurants, no coffee dates with my husband, after nearly a year of all four of us being in the house together, after a year of watching terrible things happen to Black men and women and immigrants and their children, and people dying by the tens of thousands, and ugliness and lies and meanness and vitriol coming from our president, I felt cold and desolate too. And in winter, there are not flowers and sky, sunshine and water to get me through.
Until yesterday. After four weeks of snow storms and ice storms and temperatures consistently below freezing, the sun came out and shone warm. It melted the snow and ice. It warmed the ground. I put on short sleeves to run, and I felt sun on my skin. I smelled the scent of thawing dirt as I ran. I felt heat radiate from the asphalt. I ran under blue sky.
When I returned home, I walked across our lawn, still panting from my run, to check on the bulbs our mail carrier gave us from her garden. Last year they bloomed February 13. I’ve checked them every week in February, through snow and ice, and finally, yesterday, they bloomed.
With these little flowers, I feel a release. I feel like I can make it now. The world around me is thawing. We have a kind and compassionate leader who acknowledges the hurt of the world and wants to help heal it. In a few weeks I will have my annual gardening vacation, where I spend an entire week outdoors, cutting, pruning, shoveling mulch. Soon I will be able to sit on the back deck in the sunlight and watch the world come back to life.
I took Friday off last week and thought I might do some garden cleanup — cut back perennials, turn the compost — but I didn’t. I read instead. I finished The Weird Sisters and started Jane Eyre, and really, that’s all I wanted on a cold windy weekend. To lay under blankets and read novels.
Maybe over the Thankgsiving break I’ll take care of the garden. For now I’m publishing photos of the garden in November so that come spring I’ll be able to show the vivid contrast of new life.
I slept in on Sunday after I woke at 5:15am to feed the dumb cats. When I got out of bed around 7:45, this time by my choice, the light out back was glorious — a dazzling golden light on a crisp October morning. It shone on the bronze blades of ornamental grasses, on the yellow flowers of the rudbeckia, on the oak with its coppery leaves, the magenta coneflowers, burgundy mums, and scarlet pineapple sage.
I refilled the bird feeders Saturday, so in that peaceful morning light, it was like Wild Kingdom in our yard. I opened the sliding glass door to move the screen door over so I could see out the clear glass panel instead of the clouded one. At the sound of the heavy door sliding open, the squirrel on the hanging feeder scurried up into the oak, causing the heavy feeder to swing madly while all the ground doves scattered in a flutter of grey-brown wings.
I ate oatmeal and drank coffee at the kitchen table and watched birds: goldfinches, house finches, blue jays, cardinals. They flew from oak to fence to ground to maple to other oak. They darted to the platform feeder, they shook branches as they fluttered, took off, landed. Doves ran across the mulch, a goldfinch perched on the trellis for the passion vine. A bright red cardinal scavenged seed from the ground near the platform feeder, under the rue and the Mexican feather grass. Blue jays swept across the flower bed with wings spread to land on the feeder, the fence, a tree branch.
I love my garden. Sometimes I have to laugh, though, that I spend my free time watching squirrels and birds. All I need now is a rocking chair.
Last night, I pulled my flannel pajamas out of storage. When I woke this morning and looked out our bedroom window, I saw a silver dusting of frost on the grass. Melted droplets glittered in the sun.
Now I sit in my favorite spot by the living room window eating lemon cake and drinking coffee while classical music softly plays. The parts of the lawn still in shade look like silvery green carpet.
It’s 38℉ (3℃) and bright sunny. Despite the frost, the garden is still in bloom. Bronze tassels of ornamental grasses wave to the early sun. Purple salvia spike bright, and pink and peach zinnias lift their petaled faces to the morning September light. The rose bushes are dotted with fuschia blossoms; the autumn joy sedums by the mailbox have darkened to a deep dusty rose.
I wish I had an encyclopedia of colors. I want a book of photographs of real things, organized by color, that I can flip through to find color names. I can’t find the right name for the color the sedums are. They’re terra cotta with a hint of pink. They’re a dusty toadstool cap. They’re pinkish-rust brocolli flowers. It’s driving me bonkers to not be able to find the right word. Does Pantone have a color book? That might work too, though I really would like to look at pictures of real things for inspiration.
As a backdrop to all the blooms, the pear trees have already dropped their leaves. Their bare branches are a tangle of brittle grey and white lines. A blue jay has landed in one of my flower baskets on the front steps. The jay pulls fibers from the coconut liner. Now is the time of year birds visit the summer-worn planters to gather materials for winter nests.
It’s time to get the handkerchiefs out again. The pandemic hit during allergy season. When I didn’t know what tissue availability was going to be like, I bought a bunch of cloth handkerchiefs. They served me well in the spring when my nose itched and ran. Summer saw them sit folded in a drawer. Now that the grasses are in bloom, the hankies are out again.
The silver carpet has shrunk to a small patch of shade next to the driveway. As the shadows of our neighbor’s dogwood trees recede, so does the cold. For now.
Butterfly Mind 