Virginia Bluebells

Virginia Bluebells

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I know where to find them, walked right to them on Friday, crossed Soapstone, turned left onto a springy woods trail and there they were. Early, of course. But then everything is early this year.

Tall, nodding flowers, pink as buds and becoming a heavenly blue in maturity. A blue edging toward periwinkle. A color seen less often this time of year, so dominated are we by yellows, pinks and purples.

The Virginia bluebell thrives in woodland soil, rich, loamy, leaf-strewn. There are few of these wildflowers in our woods. Which makes seeing them each spring all the more essential. I make my way to their home as if visiting a national monument or a famous painting. It’s one of my rites of spring.

Photo: Bellewood Gardens.com

The Aroma of Hyacinth…

The Aroma of Hyacinth…

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Is what remains of Easter. A whiff of a flower that droops upon its stem; that bends, heavy with fragrance and with blossom. This one is lavender, the color of regret.

A brief holiday is over. The world is still light with the new green of spring, but duty makes it feel heavy. The birds are calling and the azaleas flash pink along the walkway. The tulips arch toward the sun. I pick up where I left off. I begin again.

I keep the hyacinth by the kitchen window, where I can savor it often.

I Didn’t Take Pictures When I Lived There

I Didn’t Take Pictures When I Lived There

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But I make up for it when I return. It’s the years in the wilderness, the suburban wilderness. They have softened me, I suppose, turned me into a tourist. I snap and snap and don’t care if people think I’m a tourist. I’m easily impressed. I look up.

Every direction is a photograph. The ripple of water in a lagoon, the play of light on a brownstone, the San Remo glimpsed through a screen of bright willow green.

Maybe we should move back to New York, I say to Tom, knowing, before the words leave my mouth, how foolish they sound, the four-bedroom colonial back in Virginia filled to bursting. Knowing that life has taken me far from the person I was when I made my way in Manhattan years ago.

But that’s the point of travel. Possibilities present themselves. Life, in all its fullness, returns.

Walking in the City

Walking in the City

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A walker in the suburbs strolls the streets or ambles through the woods, but her destination is secondary. She walks for the walking and not for where it takes her.

Compare this to a walker in the city, pounding the concrete day after day. Here is walking with purpose, commuting on foot or by subway (which must also be walked to and from); walking to the corner for a newspaper, to the market for a quart of milk. Walking because it’s faster than taking a cab. Walking because, well, it’s just the way you get around. It is the air you breathe; it is the environment.

All this is to say, a walker in the suburbs forgets how much she walked when she lived in the big city. And when she goes back there her feet remind her. Her soul too. It soars.

The Same Path

The Same Path

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On a walk through the meadow the other day it dawned on me that my path was made possible not only by my treks but also by Tom’s. A trail is born of frequent footfall, and the two of us, though separately more often than we’d like, give the Folkstone routes a pounding.

It is a strange sort of togetherness that I celebrate here, then, that of walking the same trail at different times. But that is often the way of marriage, both in a practical sense (you watch the kids now and I’ll do the same for you later) and an emotional one. We come to terms with life in our own time, but we share in the great labors of child rearing and home creating. We are stronger because we’re together — and because we’re together, we don’t have to stride in lockstep.

Today, Tom and I celebrate 25 years of walking the same path — and it is still a grand adventure.

Rooting for the Overdog

Rooting for the Overdog

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Once a year in March (or, if we’re lucky, in April, too) I watch University of Kentucky basketball. I’m not a very good spectator, perhaps because I’m such a fair-weather one, tuning in only when my home team is in the NCAA finals. Last night I was so nervous that Kansas would pull off one of their trademark last-minute wins that I kept switching back to an American Masters program on To Kill a Mockingbird. This is the way an English major watches a sporting event.

To be a Kentucky fan (of which I am only the very mildest sort) means never to root for the underdog. Since I usually pull for the horse with high odds, the Olympic hopeful just shy of glory, this is an unusual position in which to find myself. Over and over again last night I heard commentators expound on how Kansas could still pull this off. Even in the last minute, they talked about the combination of three-point shots and carefully timed free-throw opportunities that could give them a victory.

Usually I like this talk, the come-from-behind excitement that makes life worth living. But last night I was all for sure and steady, for steeling one’s nerves and sticking to it. Last night, I was rooting for the overdog, the team that was expected to bring home the trophy. It faces the greater pressure. And when it wins, the victory is sweet.

Photo of Kentucky coach John Calipari, College Hoops Video.

New Leaves

New Leaves

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For the last few days the oak leaves have been inching slowly heavenward. The nights have been cool, so they have stayed small and purposeful and brilliant. They are flowers but not flowering, leaves but not leaving.

At this point each one is separate, distinct, on its own skyward pilgrimage. They raise themselves up as if in prayer. They catch the evening light.

Promise

Promise

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March came in like a lamb and is going out like one, too. I raise a silent cheer for lambs, then, and for spring green, pileated woodpeckers (just saw a huge one on our wood pile), fresh mint (sprouting in our garden) and a backyard still in progress.

The double-barreled tree trunk by the fence, it can still be turned into a funky water feature. And the day lilies we transplanted, they may still bloom. Springtime has many charms, but chief among them is potential, the light and the growing season that lie ahead of us. Would that I could always feel the promise of each day.

Room with a View

Room with a View

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When I was a kid, I liked to climb trees. Not as a daredevil would, not to the highest branches, but high enough that I could see our house and yard from a new angle. It was like standing on my head, something else I liked to do back then.

Now I dream of a cabin on a ridge. Mountains will rise in the distance, a ribbon of river binding them to earth. And beyond them, clouds will pile plump as pillows. It will be hard at times to tell the mountains from the clouds, the soil from the sky. But I will know the horizon and my place in the world.

Is this the allure of views, then, that they help us belong? Or is it the opposite: that they teach us to escape?

The Grace of Good Company

The Grace of Good Company

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It’s springtime in Washington, which means we host friends we haven’t seen in years. They come from the city and the suburbs, from the Midwest and the West Coast. And they bring with them a whiff of the way things used to be, of the pre-suburban me. They remind me that there is a grace that flows from good company.

Last night there were 12 of us in our small kitchen, friends and kids of friends, eating and laughing and talking about everything from the Supreme Court health care debate to the plethora of Chicago microbreweries.

Roots and seedlings aren’t the only things being stirred to life this time of year.