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Category: seasons

Savoring the Summer

Savoring the Summer

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I join the morning as it moves slowly over the drowsy
suburbs of Washington. I see it clamber up a bank of clouds and shimmer as violet curtains part to make way for the sun. The sunrise is so vivid that it colors even the dark leaves of the shaded maples.

I walk without earphones, listening instead to the avian chorus. Those birds; they always know what to do, rising early to claim the day.
It was still dusk when I left the house. Bats darted through the air, foraging for last-minute snacks. A slow-moving skunk lumbered across the road. Squirrels scampered up trees, chattering to their own.

Last night’s walk took me from daylight to darkness; today’s
from darkness to daylight. I think about how lucky I am to see one day out and another day in,
to savor the summer in its passage.
Out There

Out There

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A light rain this morning, almost welcome after some hot dry windy days. It’s so still that even the birds are hushed. The deck is mottled, not soaked as much as dampened.

We are past the middle of June, the solstice almost upon us, and I’m still snatching summer in dribbles and drabs. Here a 20-minute walk, there a 20-minute bounce, dining al fresco on the deck.
I’ve found a spot in the office where I can stand and look out the window almost unobserved. I go there when writing headlines or doing other creative work. My eyes stray from the page to the trees blowing green and the clouds puffy white. 

There’s the summer! Right there, just beyond my grasp. One of these days I’ll catch up with it.
Time Warp

Time Warp

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Unseasonable weather creates a time warp.  Are these the first floundering days of March? A rainy patch in October? Or the sort of chilly midsummer I remember being called blackberry winter?

Strawberry winter is more like it.

These are usually our jewel-tone days, the azaleas and iris overlapping, rhododendrons too. They, by the way, are doing well this year; they thrive on moisture. But the others haven’t lived up to promise. They’ve been too busy staying alive.

I gave May a pass until we hit the double digits. But it’s the 11th. Time to get with it, May. We need some warm weather, and we need it now!

Spring Break

Spring Break

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Into my life comes a welcome pause. A few days in between. And I’m starting them off on the deck.

It’s a perfect spring morning. Birds are flitting and nesting. Dogwood is blooming. The door is open to the living room. The air is a perfect 70 degrees.

This is not a time of year I usually take off, these precious days of spring. Why not? Oh, too busy, I guess.

Meanwhile, the miracle unfolds, unseen. And I’ve been all the poorer for it.

Slow Greening

Slow Greening

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When I returned here late Sunday from Lexington, I could tell that spring hadn’t gotten much further than it was when I left three days earlier. And no wonder: Virginia had the same cold rain and snow bursts over the weekend that Kentucky did.

Which means that spring is delightfully long this year. The trees, just greening, are paused at a precious and delicate moment. For some, too much cold now means no blooms later on. The hydrangea comes immediately to mind.

For others, though, the cooler temperatures mean a slower greening — a longer run of “spring green,” a Crayola color I remember from childhood. It’s a hue closer to yellow than to green. “Nature’s first green is gold,” Robert Frost said. “Its hardest hue to hold.”

Some years, that “hardest hue to hold” lasts only hours; other years it might linger for a few days. This year it’s going on a week — a slow greening that’s a long tease and a rare treat. It’s all I can do not to aim my camera at every leaf and tree.

From the Top

From the Top

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Looking at the springtime miracle, watching it unfold. What I notice every year — and most certainly have written about here before — is how it starts at the top.

Those uppermost branches, the ones that scrape the sky and soak up the sun, they are the first to bud. Everything else follows in kind.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, metaphorically speaking (and — given that I’ve forgotten most of what I learned in Intro Biology — that’s the only way I can speak). Flowers, plants, crop, they all grow from the ground up. But blooming starts at the top and works its way down.

There has to be message here somewhere. 

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect

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Yesterday I threw caution to the winds and took my usual route around the Capitol. I thought about what happened there two days before — but walked anyway. It is, of course, what we have to do, which is nothing. Not alter our course in the slightest.

The reward: a picture-perfect almost-April day. Trees just greening on the Mall. Tulips in the Botanic Garden. The sinuous curves of the Indian Museum outlined against blue sky. And in that sky, twin contrails.

Everywhere I looked, everything I saw, spoke of possibility and fresh starts. Winter is truly over; spring has just begun.

Lightness of Spring

Lightness of Spring

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Walked out of the office into a perfect early spring afternoon. Jackets slung over shoulders. Tourists everywhere. A long weekend beckoning.

I was exhausted at my desk but quickly readjusted outside. There was a destination, a goal: the Tidal Basin, the cherry blossoms.

It was crowded, as usual. Picnickers, strollers, photographers, all with separate purposes but one mission — to celebrate spring. I thought then as I often do how the walker can take heart from the people she passes — some just coming alive to the world, others happy just to be in it.

I had forgotten the lightness one could have — not just in the air but in the heart.

What to Wear

What to Wear

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These are the crazy first days of spring, capricious and erratic. The thermometer appears to be broken, so profoundly do its readings vary from morning till night. All we can do is hang on.

That — and figure out what to wear. Should we dress for morning or for afternoon? Or more precisely, should we be comfortable at 6 a.m. and sticky at 4? Or the other way around?

For me, it’s the former every time.  I’ll wear a turtleneck even though it’s going up to 70. But when I walk out the door and feel the first cold blast of 30-something-degree air, I’ll pull the sweater up to my chin and luxuriate in its warmth.

Amnesia

Amnesia

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Today’s high temperature will hit 70, they say. Which made yesterday’s walk a warm up for the warm up. Coat on but open, then finally off and carried. Scarf loosened. Gloves? No way! Cold weather? Fuggedaboutit!

This is what happens when warmth returns.  The memory of cold vanishes. Though just days ago we had snow and ice, they seem part of another era, sepia-toned. Gone even is my memory of cold, its sharpness and shivering.

This being March, though, the sharpness and shivering will no doubt return. But for now, it’s gone. In its place are soft breezes and bird song.

It’s springtime amnesia. It’s what makes the world go round.