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Category: seasons

Jackets Off!

Jackets Off!

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A sure sign of summer in D.C., more even than long lines at the Capitol Visitors’ Center or Code Orange air alerts, is the suit jacket carried over a shoulder.

I noticed at least half a dozen examples of this on yesterday’s walk around the Mall, but didn’t snap any photos.

So for this one you’ll have to imagine it 20 degrees warmer, air steamy rather than brisk. Feel the heat radiating up from the pavement, see the leaves not moving on the trees.

It’s summer in the city. Jackets off!

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect

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In honor of today’s weather — blue skies, low humidity, green leaves, red roses (I could go on…) — a picture of outside.

A window frame, a window gone (this was during last summer’s new siding, roof and window project) and another perfect early summer day.

Preserved then so we can celebrate now.

Finally Summer

Finally Summer

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It’s finally warm enough for a morning on the deck, writing, reading the paper, watching Copper in his earnest but futile campaign to catch the sleek crows that wing their way across the yard.

In the distance the sound of a small engine in the sky.

Its putter takes me right to the beach, a hot noon and a low-flying plane with an “All-You-Can-Eat Buffet” or “Free Jazz on the Pier” banner streaming behind it. 

It’s Memorial Day. It’s warmer than 42 degrees. It’s finally summer.

Screen Door

Screen Door

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The air is soft, the birds are singing, it’s time for the screen door.

A screen door breaks down the barrier between outside and in. It lets the air move freely between the two worlds.

Out go the dim lights, hot soups and thick socks of winter. In come the bright sun, cool salads and bare feet of summer. 

This is not our screen door; it’s the screen door of my brother- and sister-in-law in Portland.  We haven’t used our screen door since we got an energetic dog. Copper also sees a screen as a way to break down the barrier between outside and in — but in a more direct and less metaphorical way.

So I keep the back door open (no screen at all) and remember a time when the slap of the screen door closing meant summer and all of its freedoms.

Cold May Day

Cold May Day

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As I write, the temperature hovers above freezing. 35 degrees on May 14!

Cold spring days are the smell of cut grass in nippy air. They are the crisp edge of morning when dawn is brisk as well as bright. They are lingering dogwood, preserved by the chill.

The seasons bump up against each other, one ready to begin and the other not ready to leave.

I know how this story ends.

The question is when.

A May Day

A May Day

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I’m two days late on this one, but the story still needs telling. What we have here is perfection.

The azaleas are out and the dogwood still in bloom. The clematis winds its way around the lamppost. Tulips nod valiantly by the door. Forget-me-nots spread a blue cloud in the garden.

The front door is open and light pours in. May is like that. Early in the month it’s pure spring. But it opens the door to summer.

Not May Day. But a May day.

How to Dress

How to Dress

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These are days that try the wardrobe. Low 40s at 6 a.m.; mid 70s at 4 p.m. Does one dress for the morning … or the afternoon?

Furthermore, is this a “glass half full or glass half empty” question? Does the optimist dress for the future and the pessimist for the present? Or does the decision have nothing to do with outlook, but only with body temperature? Do cold-natured folks dress for morning and warm-natured for afternoon?

These are questions without answers, so I decide to split the difference: A leather jacket yesterday (comfortable on the way to work, boiling on the way home) but only a suit jacket today (running to the office I was so cold).

As problems go, not a major one. Soon it will be cooler inside than out. And then there will be a different set of wardrobe decisions.

The Aftermath

The Aftermath

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Two days of weather and it’s raining not just drops but petals.

Blossoms fall from the trees, cling to sidewalks, cars — and park benches, too.

A house I passed yesterday in the twilight caught my eye, its front lawn covered with vivid pink petals, from a Kwanzan cherry, I think. If I’d had time I would have stopped and snapped a picture.

Instead I remember this: an ordinary house, a tree branching green, a yard with pink snow.

A Pageant of Green

A Pageant of Green

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On a walk this weekend I notice not just the pinks, purples and blues — but also the greens. Not just one but many, the trees as variegated in spring as they are in fall.

The delicate veil of the new weeping willow. The shiny darkness of the budding holly. The praying-hand buds of the tulip tree. The juvenile leaves of the red oaks, formed but not yet fully.

A ring of green around the meadow. A scarf of green tossed carelessly across the roof.

A pageant of green, freshened by rain.

Grass Moon

Grass Moon

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It’s not green, not blue, either. It’s a brilliant white, brighter than any recent winter moon. It’s the Grass Moon, a springtime orb, arriving just as the grass is starting to grow again and the mowers are humming and before we’ve grown tired of that weekly ritual.

 I learned of the Grass Moon by reading my favorite go-to weather site, the Capital Weather Gang. It will be a beautiful full moon tonight, the “Gang” told me, the Grass Moon. So I tiptoed out the front door at 9:30, trying not to rouse the dog, and stared at the moon peeking through the branches of the dogwood tree.

It was doubly framed, this moon, first by the tall oaks and then by the white blossoms of the tree. The moon shed enough light that I could make out each separate flower, could notice the details of branch and bloom, could have probably (if I’d wanted to) knelt down and counted each blade of grass.

It was a moon that brought the rest of spring into focus.

Wikimedia Commons: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos