A Whiff of Honeysuckle

A Whiff of Honeysuckle

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The aroma of honeysuckle is in the air, and every year I want to hold onto it, to have it close at hand so I can inhale it whenever I walk out the door. I dream of rooting a sprig of the vine, planting it, and training it to tumble over my back fence.

This year I came close to doing that, was even scouting out potential plant “donors.” Then I came to my senses. Introduce another invasive species when our yard is full of knotweed, stilt grass and bamboo? I must be crazy.

Honeysuckle is a wild thing, after all, and it’s best left where it is, mostly in the park or common land. A whiff may be all I get. But sometimes, a whiff is enough.

Memorial at Ball’s Bluff

Memorial at Ball’s Bluff

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I couldn’t visit my parents’ graves at a national cemetery in Kentucky, so yesterday I thought I’d do the next best thing: visit a national cemetery in Virginia. Arlington immediately sprang to mind … and just as quickly left it as I thought about the traffic.

Instead, I found a small national cemetery — the third smallest in the U.S., as a matter of fact — located near a Civil War battlefield, Ball’s Bluff. You can hike down to the Potomac, which Union soldiers crossed before the battle on October 21, 1861. 

The skirmish did not go well for them. The Confederates prevailed, just as they had at the Battle of Bull Run a few months earlier, and a U.S. senator,  Edward Baker, was killed. His death is commemorated with a marker, and the small walled cemetery there holds the remains of 54 Union soldiers. 

It was a warm day, but the paths were shady, and at the trail’s end, the Potomac River was calm and peaceful, a contrast to that day … and so many others.

Blooming Where Planted

Blooming Where Planted

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For so long this has been a loaded phrase for me — “blooming where planted.” It carries with it more than a hint of compromise. Or maybe it’s wistfulness, that I didn’t stay where I was planted but moved several times as a young adult before settling where I did. 

And then there’s the fact that I’ve ended up in the suburbs. Heaven knows I carp enough about that.

But today, the angle of the light striking the grass on the lawns I passed, the scent of the air, rich with loam and honeysuckle, made me think that there could not be a much better place to be planted. And that whatever the mixed emotions with which I’ve traditionally viewed the saying, there is a nobility in trying to flourish wherever you are, in contenting yourself with the situation at hand. 

(Pebble people frolic along one of my favorite routes.)

Rose Time

Rose Time

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The climbing rose peaked a few days ago, but the plant is still weighed heavy by blossoms, and when I sit on the deck to write the air is filled with fragrance. 

When I look out at the yard through its flowers, it’s a little like looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses.

But at some point, I must squeegee off the glass-topped table and abandon for a minute my journal or laptop to sweep up petals with the old broom I leave outside. 

What better way to enjoy the rose than by immersing myself in its detritus, still soft and pearly pink?

New Citizen Abo

New Citizen Abo

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Almost five years ago, his father stood with others from around the world and promised to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. My son-in-law Appolinaire recited the oath, shook hands with a customs officer and received a certificate of naturalization. 

Today, Appolinaire and my daughter will watch as their son becomes an American citizen. Prince arrived in the U.S. from Benin, West Africa, at age 11, on the first birthday of his baby sister.  She will be in the audience today, as will all of us, watching with pride as Prince, now 13, receives a gift he may not understand as well as his father did but which he will come to appreciate in time. 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It’s still a remarkable statement, still a wondrous philosophy on which to build a nation. And when you see the fervor with which new citizens embrace it, our country and its founding ideals feel as fresh and extraordinary as they did almost 250 years ago. 


(A snapshot from a 2019 naturalization ceremony)
Connectivity

Connectivity

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On a walk I took Monday and may take again today, I noticed how rich life feels when the path you are walking is not just an afterthought to a road but is a network complete unto itself. 

It leads from place to place, revealing parks and benches and fountains not easily seen otherwise. It has numerous intersections and junctions. You must know which way to turn or you will be lost, though not for long.

Such a trail has segments you recognize and enjoy: a few hundred feet winding among townhouses in the beginning, a wooded stretch, a ball field and little free library. Crossing one street, passing under another, and finally winding up in an urban village, complete with café, bookstore and community center. 

A walk from place to place is about more than exercise. It’s about connectivity. 

Immortality

Immortality

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Today, my dear friend Nancy will be laid to rest in the Indiana earth, less than 150 miles from where we first met. But where is she now, really? 

My faith tells me that she is sleeping and will rise in glory on the Last Day. My skeptical self says, “Hmmm…” 

One thing I know for sure: Nancy lives on in the hearts of those who love her. It’s an immortality in which we all can believe — and to which we all can aspire. 

(The Bernini columns in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, one of many wonders I saw for the first time with Nancy. Photo: Wikipedia)

Listening Local

Listening Local

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We live close to one of the nation’s great symphony orchestras, but sometimes I like to keep my listening local — hyper-local, in fact. On Saturday there were two concerts within a 10-minute drive from the house: a community orchestra’s year-end performance and an organ and trumpet recital at church. The timing would be close: one began at 4, the other at 6. Could we take in both?

It was not only possible, but it seemed the best possible use of a rainy Saturday afternoon. The Reston Community Orchestra was trying out the last of its four conductor finalists, and sparks (and at one point even the baton) were flying as the orchestra galloped through two Mozart overtures, the Haydn Cello Concerto and Beethoven’s Second Symphony. 

Later, in the (post-vigil-Mass) sanctuary, the church’s new music director turned the organ around so the audience could see all its keyboards and stops. He and the trumpeter began with Handel’s “The Trumpet Shall Sound” from “The Messiah” and ended with Mussorgsky’s “The Great Gate of Kiev” from “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Can any two instruments sound fuller and more orchestra-like? I don’t think so. 

At least on Saturday, listening local was the way to go. 

(Members of the Reston Community Orchestra take a bow)

Golden Stroll

Golden Stroll

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Back from a long drive, I take to the road. Not as a motorist but a pedestrian. I’m not often walking during the “golden hour,” when the sun slants low and bathes the landscape in soft light, but I was yesterday, and I reveled in it.

I first learned of the golden hour traveling with photographers. While writers can ply their trade at any hour (observing, interviewing, soaking up the local color), photographers prefer mornings and evenings to snap their shots. I see why. The world looks better then, and so do the photographs.

I didn’t intend to stroll during the golden hour yesterday; that was just the time available. But once I was walking through it I realized my good fortune. Here was beauty to soothe the nerves and still the mind. 

(The golden hour in Khulna, Bangladesh.)

Family Bibles

Family Bibles

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They hold newspaper clippings, holy cards, photos of babies in long cotton gowns. Century-old flowers crumble in their pages, and their bindings are frayed and worn.

Yesterday I paged through a stack of old family bibles looking for names, dates, relationships. Some of them had elaborate closures; others were falling apart. Some of them gave up their secrets; others did not.

But all of them held the fears and triumphs of mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins. They were the ceremonial center of recorded family life. I studied them, photographed them, copied words from their pages. Then I brushed their dust off my hands and came upstairs, to the land of the living.