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Category: spring

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.

Last Stand

Last Stand

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Woke up to a white world. Each twig and limb covered with heavy, clinging snow. Deceptive in the gloaming, when shapes are not what they appear.

As the morning grew lighter I could make out black roads and driveway, grass tops bursting through the blanket. But the holly is still dolloped, and the first faint blooms of witch hazel, that thin yellow furze, are coated in frosting. Every few minutes the wind loosens a clump of snow, which retains its twig shape for an instant, then vanishes in a pouf of powder.

I looked ahead at the forecast; in a few days we’ll have 60s and 70s. This morning’s weather is a last stand of sorts. It is beauty at its most basic, which is fleeting. By noon tree limbs will be barren bark.

Meanwhile, I fill my eyes with the scene out the window. Today it’s winter; next week it will be spring.

Passage to Spring

Passage to Spring

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Lent arrives early this year — before Valentine’s Day. This is cruel timing for those of us contemplating a 40-day ban on chocolate.

But if it gives us an early Easter and an early spring (not that those two necessarily go together … ) then bring it on.

Meanwhile, the wind is howling in from the west and roads are slicked from last night’s freeze. This will be the coldest week of the winter. A fitting time, then, to begin a spiritual pilgrimage, a journey, a passage.

I always remind myself that “lent” comes from the word “to lengthen.” Seen this way, then, lent is a passage to spring. It is a time of lengthening days, of birds on the wing. A time of promise that soon we’ll be green and growing again. 

Abundance

Abundance

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We have come to that point in the month, in the season, when blossoms hang heavy over fence rows and window boxes; when the air itself has taken on the heft of summer and given up the thin, clear bell tones of spring.

It’s always welcome, this time of year, as if we have been waiting to get back here forever, as if this is the season, the only one. And in some parts of the world it is. I can say this now having been to a place where heat and humidity are a way of life, where some people have never worn a pair of closed-toe shoes.

But in those places, in warm places, there is not the same glad recognition of difference we have here. There is not the memory of frost-hardened ground when digging in the warm soil of spring. There is not the acrid taste of snow displaced by honeysuckle on the tongue.

So here we are, finally, in this season of abundance. Stay a while, I want to say, holding fast to the profusion, knowing as I do that holding on defeats the purpose.

Baby Shade

Baby Shade

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The trees are sure of themselves now. Even the most timid have leafed out. The only outliers I see  are the crepe myrtles, and I get their reticence. They are in glorious bloom at the end of summer; they need to bide their time now.

Leafing trees mean a canopy between us and heaven. They are an aural presence, something for the wind to blow through before a storm.

And of course, they also mean shade. At this time of year it’s baby shade. Not the deep cool gladness of June, July and August. The shade of May is a winsome thing, still finding itself.

Come on, baby shade! You can do it!

Freeze Frame

Freeze Frame

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It’s 37 degrees as I write these words, with highs reaching only the mid 50s.  Not the most desirable temperature trajectory — with one notable exception. The cooler it is (within reason), the longer spring will last.

Take today, a wonderful juncture to freeze-frame — the azaleas just budding, trees just greening, the dogwood, redbud and Kwanzan cherries at their glorious peaks.

Speaking of redbud, the wild cousins of these suburban trees were in full bloom on my drive last weekend. They lined the road for miles in spots, a pinkish-purple haze along the highway.

I hope they’re in freeze-frame now too.

A Bevvy of Bikers

A Bevvy of Bikers

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I heard them before I saw them. A low-pitched whirring not unlike what we experienced during the summer of the cicada invasion.

But these weren’t insects; they were bikers!

Every Tuesday evening from April through October, scores of cyclists (who should probably not be called bikers but I couldn’t resist the alliteration) skim along Reston’s suburban thoroughfares. They zoom by so impossibly fast that all I sometimes catch of them is a blur of movement.

If I’m close enough (as I was night before last), I might pick up a bit of conversation or laughter, a few words out of context. But other than that, the cyclists scarcely seem human. It’s as if person and bike have melded into one creature, a centaur of sorts. An impression that running in packs only reinforces.

After one or two packs swish by there is usually a straggler or two, huffing and puffing and bringing up the rear. They are the lucky ones. In it but not in it. Far enough away to know what they are part of.