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Category: seasons

Days Grow Shorter

Days Grow Shorter

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The days grow shorter as the to-do list grows longer. I lift my head from work to find the sun so low in the sky that I give up on running errands for the day. I can venture out tomorrow, when it will, of course, be dark even earlier.

Not for nothing do we light our lamps, place candles in our windows, drape trees with brilliant garlands. It’s time to remind ourselves that we will not always have nine hours of daylight and monochrome landscapes. That there will come a time when twilights will linger till almost 10 and the world will burst with color again.

But for now, nothing to do but pull on the wool socks, the ear-warmers, the gloves, the buff. Take a deep breath, plunge into the cold air and breathe deeply. This will not last forever. Nor will we.

Winter’s First

Winter’s First

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Surely there is nobility in these early days of winter. Bare trees reach heavenward, their trunks a model of verticality. Nothing is wasted or feigned.

My eyes seek the green of ground covers and firs, the splash of morning light on a tall oak. They look for color in December’s pale grays and blues. They find something else, something leaden and true, what winter reveals, which is the essence of things.

It’s a new month, winter’s first. I feel its power in my bones.

The Heat is On

The Heat is On

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I write to the slow whirr of the furnace. It’s cold enough outside that the heat is on, and I’m grateful for it as I write my post in the early hours. I imagine warm air pulsing through the ducts, rising through the registers, making this house comfortable.

The trees are touched by cold, too, the green palette of early October giving way to the russets, golds and oranges of autumn. Orange too are the pumpkins by the door, better preserved in this current chill. Hedges are thinning. Small birds must burrow deeper inside them for warmth.

Soon it will be time to move the plants indoors, to air out the woolens, to make soup. Mornings are dark and evenings are early. The great earth tilts. All we can do is hang on for the ride.

Summer Preserved

Summer Preserved

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I usually take months to fill a handwritten journal. The one I finished this morning took exactly six weeks. I began it in the dog days of summer, sitting in the hammock as twilight fell, two days before flying to France. I knew that when I returned, the season would almost be over.

And though we’ve had heat and humidity, dry parched earth and one torrential rain, the calendar tells me that autumn begins today. So I finished the journal, tying the summer in a bow.

I filled about half the 80 pages the last two weeks. In the rush of travel there may only be time to record names, dates, places, impressions. Digesting it all begins later. This time it began while I was waiting for the return flight. I wrote for hours, capturing moments I was afraid I’d forget: three Eurostar conductors on the platform frantically puffing their cigarettes after we reached Paris from Brussels. The flapping plaid flannel shirt of a cyclist who zoomed past me in Amsterdam. The translucent orange butterflies at the Botanical Gardens.

Words like ripe fruit that I process and freeze, preserved for the future. The words and the seasons were in sync for a while. Now summer is over, but the words remain.

Endless Summer

Endless Summer

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It’s mid-July, midsummer. It’s easy now to believe that summer will always be with us, that the long days and sultry nights will remain. What is it about this season that makes me not just forget about the others but cease to believe in them. Is it just wishful thinking or is there some scientific explanation for this blissful (but oh-so-wrong) perception of endless summer?

Maybe the long twilights that occur around the summer solstice? With that much light in the sky it’s easy to believe it will never end. The gray days of January seem preposterous, a bad dream.

Or maybe proximity to the perihelion, the day the earth is closest to the sun? But no. Because in the northern hemisphere the perihelion typically occurs in January.

Maybe summer seems endless because it seemed that way when I was young, and old habits (and dreams) die hard. Not exactly scientific, but true in that bone deep way of myth and time.

Outside on Earth Day

Outside on Earth Day

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It’s my first outdoor post of the season, and I’m writing it on Earth Day. The glass-topped table is perpendicular to the way it usually rests — a remnant from Easter dinner’s crowd of 20 — so I have an expansive ringside seat on the back yard.

As I type these words a glossy brown fox trots across the lawn and disappears behind the ferns. A few minutes ago I spotted a pileated woodpecker — a primeval-looking creature if ever there was one — drilling down into the stump of an old oak in search of breakfast. Hawks cry, squirrels hop, and a mama cardinal nibbles delicately at the feeder.

Before me flames an azalea that’s far too big for the garden in which it’s planted (a common failing of mine). Behind it, near the trampoline, blooms a pretty pink azalea transplanted decades ago from a friend’s house in the District. Ferns unfurl. Wood poppies pop. The lavender azalea behind the house isn’t as abundant as last year, due to some necessary pruning (we could no longer see out the kitchen window!), but it’s still striking. Did I mention it’s azalea season in my neck of the woods?

And finally, the most exciting garden news: The lilac I’ve celebrated for years has finally produced more flowers than I can count. To inhale its fragrance is to be transported.

Transported is what I am on this Earth Day. The long winter is finally over.

Cold Snap

Cold Snap

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I wore a parka and gloves on yesterday’s walk, and last night the furnace whirred off and on more than it has in weeks. Our up-and-down spring is down again … or up, depending upon your preference.

The chilly spring day has one thing in its favor. It pauses the procession of bloom. Today it’s paused the Kwanzan cherry at the peak of its resplendence. It was a tall, scrawny specimen when we bought it years ago. I didn’t even know what it was at the time. A cherry tree, yes, but what kind?

I didn’t know about the gnarled trunk it would develop or its splashy pink flowers or how it would bloom later than the Yoshino. This is a tree to be reckoned with: its roots have spread halfway across the front yard, which gives the mower a bumpy ride.

But for a few days in April, the Kwanzan takes our breath away. And this year, thanks to the cold snap, maybe it will take our breath away for a few days more.

Cool Spring

Cool Spring

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It’s one of those days that looks like spring but feels like winter. The Bradford pears are blooming, their white arms shivering in the breeze.

Hyacinths hesitate, wondering if it’s warm enough to venture above the soil.

The daffodils and cherry trees have made their decisions. They’ll brave the temps .. and last longer because of them.

AaaaChoo!

AaaaChoo!

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Spring arrives today and with it sneezes, sniffles and coughs. It’s high pollen season here in the mid-Atlantic, and scratchy throats and itchy eyes are the result.

I try to ignore seasonal allergies, which I can do since mine are middling at their worst, but some people can’t. They’re forced to stay inside during these lovely days, especially folks in Wichita, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Memphis, which were ranked the five worst cities for allergy-sufferers in the country.

Two Virginia cities ranked in the “top” (worst) ten, Richmond and Virginia Beach. The D.C. area did not, in part because rankings take into account the number of allergy docs, and we have a lot of them.

My remedy for all of this is simple: Have Kleenex, will travel.

Skipping Ahead

Skipping Ahead

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The faint yellow fuzz at the top of witch hazel tree has fully sprouted. From my office window I can see the first faint signs of spring. Typically, I watch spring unfold gradually, in place here in the mid-Atlantic.

But later today I leave for a place that is really in the mid-Atlantic, as in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean — the island of Madeira. Three hundred miles off the coast of Morocco, Madeira has a temperate climate. Spring should be in full flower when we arrive Friday morning.

Here’s to spring, then, whether it unfolds gently or hits you in the face. Both ways are good.

(Wisteria in the Madeira Botanical Garden, March 2024)