Life and Death in the Forest

Life and Death in the Forest

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I look out the window and see the leaves flashing green and
think of walks I’ve taken recently, how I march now through a tunnel of
treetops bending. This is the settled Folkstone, this shining place, with a
forest encroaching on the road and the road obliging. 
Step off the road, follow
the path, and you will enter a place of gathering sunshine. As the road is
greening, the woods are clearing. The big trees are falling, dying, living out
their natural lives. They are tumbling down in fierce rains and big winds. They
are falling there, even if they’re not heard, and we, the walkers, are the only
ones who notice.
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.

Technical Difficulties

Technical Difficulties

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I wonder if anyone has done a study of the time spent trying to learn, operate and repair the electronic items in our possession. I wonder this because in the time I’ve spent trying to download a book on my much-neglected Kindle, I could have driven to the store and bought the book. (If I could find a bookstore and if the bookstore carried this book.)

The culprit: a new wireless network in our house, which means Netflix streams intermittently now, if at all, and the e-reader that worked with the old network and password is balking at the new one.

At these moments I inevitably anthropomorphize the gizmo, tell myself that it’s a creature of habit, doesn’t like the vibes given off by the new network, is a bit set in its ways. (Speaking of set in its ways, has it ever considered what it took for me to come around to reading on it?)

But no, apparently it hasn’t. And now the book I was planning to start for book group tonight is still up there in the ether and I’m reading something else entirely.

Everything is fast and easy these days. Until it isn’t.

(Ready to read — if only I could download the novel!)

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.

Urban Density

Urban Density

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An article in the this morning’s Washington Post gives a new meaning to these words. Not density of people, density of trees. Turns out that in the District of Columbia and its suburbs, trees are a true marker of income. Where the tree cover rating is 82 percent, median household income is over $200,000; where the rating is 48 percent, median household income is $36, 250.

Trees aren’t cheap. At least they haven’t been for us. And even with pruning, watering and fertilizing, the trees in our yard are dying much faster than we can replace them.

I learned from the article that D.C.’s overall tree canopy has declined from 50 percent in 1950 to 36 percent today, a change due mostly to development. (In the suburbs it may be the opposite, because many neighborhoods here used to be farms with tillable fields and open meadows until the houses went in.)

After reading this article, I feel like taking off for the closest woodland path. I’d rather not think of trees in socioeconomic terms, but now, unfortunately, I will.

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

Quite a Track

Quite a Track

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When I don’t have time for a long walk at lunch I “just” walk around the Capitol. This can be an exercise in frustration, as I thread my way past bomb-sniffing dogs, bicycle-riding police officers, sign-toting protesters and press-conference-giving legislators.

Most of all, of course, there are tourists. They stroll, they dawdle, they pose for photographs. As well they should. That’s what they’re here for, and our city is enriched by them, really it is.

But when the Capitol loop is your lunchtime walking track, and you want to round it twice before going back to your desk, well, it’s easy to stew and fume at the congestion.

Whenever that happens, I try to step back and remind myself where I am. And if I have a phone in hand (as I did one day last week), I become one of the picture-taking multitudes, too.

Twisted

Twisted

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In this season of flower and shoot, consider the redbud tree. Its bloom is not red at all, but a vivid  shade of lilac. Like jewel-tone azaleas, this plant does not mess around with pale pastel. It is bold.

But it’s not the bud of the redbud I want to talk about, it’s the trunk — often gnarled, like the most venerable of the Yoshino cherries.

When I see a twisted trunk I think of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio:

On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. … One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side
of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground
picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of
the twisted apples.

In spring our eyes are drawn to extravagant bloom and brilliant color. But underneath are the crooked trunks, which are beautiful all year long. They are sturdy in their imperfections. They are as sweet as twisted apples.