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.
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.
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)
We’re not quite there yet, not ready to shed jackets entirely, but at least I unzipped mine yesterday — a small but important victory.
It reminds me that although my impatient personality wants things to happen quickly, they happen slowly for a good reason. The slow fade and the gradual reveal are healthier than jumping ahead.
But tell that to the spring-starved souls who’ve had to endure a real winter for a change. We want spring and we want it now. All in good time, nature reminds us. Today, maybe I’ll get away with a sweater. A heavy one, but still.
A crisp blue sky today but I keep my eyes on the ground, on the ghostly traces of slurried salt, the feeble fist we shake against winter. Today is cold but clear, snow contained but not yet melted. It feels as if we might win this battle.
But I look closer, see the rimed crust of last week’s skirmishes, recall the slick side streets. We’re only where we are because the weather has cooperated.
What struck me on this morning’s walk was the beauty of whitened cracks in the pavement, what’s left from last week’s treated roads. The residue is most visible along the shoulders and in crevices once hidden, now outlined in white. It ought to be ugly, but is not. It reminds me of the vulnerability of the modern world, of how, despite our bluster, we fumble and we fail. And there is beauty in the failure.
Novemberness is not a word, but I’m making it one with this post. Why shouldn’t we turn a month into a state of being? Melville did it: “Whenever it is a damp, dreary November in my soul…”
My experience with November is not as gloomy. I’ve always liked the month, the coziness of its early darkness, its lamplit afternoons. Thanksgiving brightening it, distracting us, and at its very end, the birthdays of two people I love.
The syllable “ness” turns adjectives into nouns: goodness, sweetness, faithfulness. The “ness” of “Novemberness” turns a proper noun into a quality or condition. Novemberness is the quality of being November, and this year we have more November to enjoy it.
I speak, of course, of the feast day happening in just two days and its placement this year, which is the latest it can possibly happen, given that it happens on the fourth Thursday of the month. Merchants are decrying it — seven fewer days to shop! — and devotees of Hallmark Christmas films are ignoring it and beginning their seasonal rituals anyway.
But I’m savoring it. I’m reveling in the stillness, in the few bright leaves that still cling to branches. I’m enjoying having more of a month that is too often rushed and folded into holiday folderol. I’m celebrating Novemberness.
We come now to the acoustic season. On paths and trails, lawns and clearings, leaves pile and crisp. They gather in corners and culverts, land softly on hedges and hollies. And when I walk through them, they talk back.
They crinkle and crackle. They swish and snap. They carry in their once full-veined selves the memory of green days and insects singing.
You cannot move through them quietly. Even small squirrels make big noises when they play. Autumn leaves amplify our footfalls, reveal our passage. They keep us honest.
On a walk this afternoon I spent more time than I intended trying to photograph leaves in flight. So many of them are swirling around that it seems I should be able to capture at least one or two mid-journey.
But either the light isn’t right, or they’re eddying about frantically rather than gently floating to the earth. Just as often, I spy the perfect slow-descending leaf but by the time I pull out my camera, it’s too late.
It’s a delicate business, like capturing a single snowflake or the down of a thistle. Perhaps it’s best left to chance.
Yesterday’s walk was exquisite: bright sun, temperature in the 70s, leaves a perfect mix of green and gold with an occasional orange or russet in the mix. I found myself looking up most of the time.
I also noticed more shade than usual. At first I thought it was further proof of tree maturity, how the oaks and poplars bend toward each other, making a tunnel above the road. But a closer look showed me that tree tunnels weren’t creating this extra shade, it was individual trees casting long shadows.
This might seem a “duh” observation. It’s that time of year, after all. The light is lowering; shadows are lengthening. What struck me yesterday, though, is how nature makes dying beautiful. Because these mellow October afternoons don’t fool me for a minute. I know where they’re taking us. But maybe, just maybe, that isn’t such a bad place after all.
The backyard is taking on an autumnal tone. Yesterday while bouncing on the trampoline, I spied traces of unexpected color in the shiny green hollies. At first I thought the lowering sun was playing tricks on my eyes, lighting up the trees from within.
Then I clambered down and inspected more closely. It was the Virginia creeper, lowly vine, thought a weed by some but looking its spiffiest this time of year.
How the yellows and oranges teased out the grandeur of those prickly bushes, made them shine. One of autumn’s many surprises, and a welcome one.