Hesitation

Hesitation

Comments 0 Comment

Word comes from bud watchers that the Tidal Basin cherry trees will bloom later than they have in years. The sustained cold weather has set them back to a more typical blossom time in early April.

It seems fitting, given the heaviness of world events. It seems right that spring should hesitate. Yes, we are winter-weary, but why should we bask in sunlight and flowers?

For that reason, I’m enjoying these last few cold, rainy days. They suit my mood and, dare I say it, the mood of the world. Let us hope for a quick end to the war. Let us hope for a spring we can truly celebrate.

Good Things

Good Things

Comments 0 Comment

A friend had a book to lend, a library book she thought I would finish long before its due date. She was right. I’m racing through the historical novel and will complete it in no time.

But there was another library book I could borrow, she said, one I’d never heard of: Good Things by Samin Nosrat, a cookbook. I’m not much of a cook but I took it as a sign.

The very next day, at a Georgetown bookstore, two wriggly preschoolers in tow, I spot the very same book. Not one copy, but shelves full of them. This is a very popular item, I learned. You can wait months in library holds queues for the chance to read it. Or you can pay $45 and own it yourself.

But here I am with my very own copy for more than two weeks. I’ve already begun perusing, marking, learning from this esteemed chef who encourages mastery in the kitchen, learning the basics of “salt, fat, acid, heat” (the title of her first, smash-hit book). Crunchy cabbage slaw with creamy sesame-ginger dressing anyone?

(Above, a salad made without the benefit of Good Things … but still good, if I recall.)

No Coats

No Coats

Comments 0 Comment

Over the weekend we stepped into March. In my neck of the woods, weathers were reversed. It was Saturday, the last day of February, when temperatures hit the mid-60s, and yesterday, March 1, when they slipped back to their more wintry ways.

But who cared? The children I was with acted like it was still in the 60s. They wore shorts and dresses and sweaters, no coats. They raced around the playground until their cheeks were rosy with the cold while this adult stood bundled in a parka.

It made me think about the nature of youth, its energy and drive, how it fills the sails, puffs them out; how it moves us forward. For many years we don’t realize that youth is what’s propelling us. Then, we must propel ourselves: through optimism, through grit, through hanging out with little folk who need no coats.

The Bellwether

The Bellwether

Comments 0 Comment

A spring bellwether has appeared, the first yellow flowers of the witch hazel tree. Some years I miss them, so focused I am on the snow and sludge that lies beneath. But this year the blossoms seem brighter than usual. They steal the show.

I’ll admit that the bar is rather low. There is nothing else blooming in the yard. The palette ranges from brown to gray with a few spots of green from the bamboo and ground cover.

In other yards, crocus are emerging, heather is budding, lenten roses are stirring. But here, the angle of the yard and the placement of plants ensure that winter rules for as long as it can.

Except for the witch hazel tree, the outlier, the bellwether. I’m glad it’s here.

(Photo: Wikipedia. I can’t get a good shot of my own tree right now!)

A Sense of Movement

A Sense of Movement

Comments 0 Comment

Today I took my first walk around Lake Anne in more than a month. The ice was thinning and the path was clear. I spied sand containers on sloping sections of the trail, do-it-yourself ice remedies.

My ice remedy is to stay off the paths. Now that our second snow has melted and our third has yet to fall, I took advantage of the mild weather to circle Reston’s oldest lake.

Unlike three weeks ago, when I snapped this shot, there were puddles and bird song and a sense of movement in the landscape.

Spring isn’t fully awake yet, but it’s beginning to stretch its arms and legs.

Poetry, Too

Poetry, Too

Comments 0 Comment

There were about 40 of us at the poetry reading last night, hardy souls who ventured out into the cold to support fellow writers and have our worlds enlarged by words.

Two friends read, mostly from their latest work: Michele Wolf from Peacocks on the Streets and Chloe Yelena Miller from Perforated.

I remember listening to Michele read from another book years ago. I felt the same last night as I did on that day, as if I seeing a newborn world, softened edges, scattered light.

Last night, I was sitting next to Suzanne, my oldest, herself a writer, someone who sighed, as I did, at the perfect phrases. That was poetry, too.

(Broken Star Quilt by Elda Strahm, photographed at the Renwick Gallery 2/24/26)

The Weight of It

The Weight of It

Comments 0 Comment

I felt differently about yesterday’s snow after being out in it. I felt the weight of it. Though it lacked the heft of snowcrete, it was heavy and wet, which is why it clung so fetchingly to limbs and branches. After shoveling it for 30 minutes, I could feel it in my back and legs.

This is more observation than complaint, proof that the landscape has its way with us — that it marks us, just as we mark it. Before I breached the white surface with my orange shovel, I noticed the tracks: fox, I believe, and a disturbed area around the ground cover, pawed by deer hungry for foliage.

We all wanted something: food in the animals’ cases and a clear driveway in mine. Movement and sustenance — twin aspirations that drive us all.

Now This is Snow

Now This is Snow

Comments 0 Comment

How enchanting to wake up to this white world! By all accounts I should be sick of snow. We’ve had white stuff on the ground for almost four weeks. But we didn’t have what you see above: the kind of snow that transforms, that turns an ordinary, workaday world into something beautiful and new.

But now, at least for a few hours, we do.

A nor’easter slammed through here yesterday on its way up the coast, and it left its mark. A heavy, wet snow bends the bamboo, covers the ground, and blankets the just-blooming tips of the witch hazel tree. Every branch and twig is embossed with a coating of pure white.

When I woke up yesterday the world was gray and ugly. It was mud season — and not unwelcome given the weeks of snowcrete we’d had to shovel and endure. With that in mind today’s weather is definitely a step in the wrong direction.

But I have to give beauty its due. I have to say, now this is snow.

Skating for Joy

Skating for Joy

Comments 0 Comment

Who knows how much is true or the kind of fairytale the Olympics likes to trumpet, but the outcome can’t be disputed. Alysa Liu just won the first gold medal in women’s figure skating since 2002. The 20-year-old took a two-year break from the sport, then returned to win the world championship and a spot on the Olympic team.

In interviews before clinching the top spot on the podium, she insisted she had nothing to prove. She was already an Olympian. Now she just had to skate, to bring joy to the ice.

When she bounced out onto the rink yesterday with her ombre ponytail flying, she was the antithesis of the tightly coiffed young women who took the stage before her. Some of them skated more elegantly than she did. But Liu skated as if she’d just been released from an earthbound cage into her true element. She jumped and landed, skipped and soared, her striped hair barely tied back, the sequins on her gold costume gleaming.

In the end it was not the “Quad God” who captured our hearts, but this ebullient young skater. Liu reminds us why we should do things in the first place — because we love to do them.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Surprise!

Surprise!

Comments 0 Comment

Last weekend, I pulled off a surprise party for Tom. I had partners in crime, especially my daughters, but I was feeling the pressure. Would one of us give it away? Would guests arrive on time?

My worries were for naught. Partygoers arrived promptly, parked where instructed (away from the house), and did everything they could to throw the birthday boy off the scent.

Now that the dust has settled I’ve been thinking about the nature of surprises, how people like to be in on them. So many of life’s sudden revelations are unpleasant ones. A call in the night. A rushed trip to the hospital.

To participate in a happy surprise is a gift. In fact, it’s as much a gift for the bystander as for the guest of honor, who may be in shock.

Does this mean I want to plan another surprise party anytime soon? No thank you!

Photo by Beverly Tomb