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Category: seasons

A Fluff Piece

A Fluff Piece

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For the last few days cottonwood fluff has been floating through the air. I think I know the source, a tree that’s half a block or so away. But every year at this time when the wind is right and the air is clear, I see its progeny.

So light, so fragile, yet tenacious enough to go the distance, it lodges itself in driveway cracks, leaf piles and sometimes even on the ground. It’s hard not to see it as wishes spun from the spring air, spores of hope.

I read about the tree, learn that it’s a type of poplar that does well in stressed soil. It became the official state tree of Kansas in 1937, the state legislature dubbing it “the pioneer of the prairie.”

Funny then to see it cast its seeds out onto the tidy, mulched lawns of suburbia. Perhaps we are the final frontier.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Grow Up

Grow Up

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Trees do it. Flowers do it. Even exasperating toddlers do it. But at this time of year it’s hard not to be thrilled by the sheer verticality of the green and growing world.

The climbing rose is a case in point. It grows up and out. Or over and out, depending upon how you look at it. And you’ll have to take my word for it, because this picture doesn’t capture it.

The point is, the branches grow out so the roses can grow up. Such is the power of the sun, of the life force.

May Day?

May Day?

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Here we are at May Day — sodden, squishy, water-logged. The petals of our dogwood, our Kwanzan cherries, scattered and beaten to the ground. Our airy forget-me-nots hardly the azure clouds they were three days ago. The azaleas hesitant, unwilling to bloom.

After this winter, I’d hoped for a knock-’em-dead spring. Something to warm and delight us. But nature doesn’t operate like that, I tell myself. Rain pelts and puddles — or fails to fall at all. Winds  funnel and destroy. Sometimes, snow even falls in spring.

The balance we seek, the recompense, is not in the natural world. If it is to be, we must supply it.

Heedless Birds

Heedless Birds

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The birds woke me this morning. Well, not really. But I was conscious of them at an early stage of awakening. I was thinking about their bravery. They have no choice but to be themselves. And that, as we know, is not always easy.

This time of year birds are heedless. It’s springtime and they’re taking chances. Bumping into windows, buzzing cars. They are high-wire artists, full of song and derring-do. They have mating on their minds, of course. They will stop at nothing to find their lady (or gentleman) loves. They may as well be deer dashing across the highway. But if I ran into a bird I wouldn’t dent the car.

So add to the list of spring marvels the madness (and madcapness) of birds. They flit, they soar, they perch on electric wires. They throw their slight bodies gladly into the world.

Dean’s Ravine Today

Dean’s Ravine Today

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Yesterday there were balmy breezes, scented air. The wind scattered petals over greening lawns.

Today it’s cold and snowy. The daffodils hang their heads. The red buds are coated in white.

It’s all part of the process, I know, two steps forward, one step back.

But it’s chilling — in more ways than one.

Mrs. Dean’s Ravine

Mrs. Dean’s Ravine

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Mrs. Dean has been gone more than two decades now, but her garden is still thriving — a legacy for its current owners (who have lovingly cared for it) and those who live nearby.

It starts off innocently enough: daffodils and forget-me-nots.

But it soon slopes down a steep hill into a bowl-shaped parcel studded with red bud and dogwood. It’s a secret garden, a natural ravine designed to look as wild as possible. I’m glad I could see it as it’s just coming alive to spring.

Cherry Blossoms!

Cherry Blossoms!

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It was the end of a long day, a long week — and it was a long walk, too. But I left the office yesterday a little before 5, cruised through Judiciary Square, the Penn Quarter and onto the Mall. By that point the mood was decidedly celebratory.

And even though I said I wouldn’t do it again, I walked all the way around the pink-petal-rimmed Tidal Basin, joining the throngs on one of the first warm days in the nation’s capital.

It’s worth noting that unless you want to rent a paddle boat, strolling is the only way to see the cherry trees in their glory.

So I did. As did everyone else.  Babies in prams, bikers in spandex, bureaucrats in blazers — we were
all ambling for one purpose: to see the cherries in peak bloom and welcome the
spring.

It has been such a hard winter … but now it’s over.

Hallelujah!

Spring Coat

Spring Coat

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The one I remember was teal and beige, nubby and flecked. It was lightweight and lined. It was essential in the way that white gloves were once essential.

It was my spring coat.

I thought of it this morning as I trudged to work in my winter coat. It’s what I turn to when the temperature is in the 30s, which it was when I left the house.

But it’s ten degrees warmer here in the city, and the coat suddenly seems a relic, an anomaly, something that should be buried in the back of the closet.

What I need today is a spring coat, a bridge from season to the other.

Peepers

Peepers

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I heard them last night, the tiny, vocal frogs we know as spring peepers. Their chorus is a sure sign of spring.

They’re late this year, the little guys. Waiting for warmth, I imagine. We all are.

But who among us makes such music of our contentment?

If I read about peepers (and I think I did long ago) I would learn that their sounds are mating calls — not some existential expression of delight.

Still, after a long winter, in the just-dark of a warm spring evening, existential delight is what I hear.