Last weekend I helped my yard wake up from its long winter’s nap. I swept thick layers of leaves off the paths, did hours of pruning, pulled up loads of winter weeds, and planted pink and white dianthus around my three stone birdbaths near the …
For the last half of January, all of February, and most of March, I was working obsessively (in the evenings and on weekends) on a small painting of our backyard. The painting was very hard for me to finish because the scene I was trying …
Spring is my favorite season. It always has been.
When I was a child, spring started, in my opinion, in February, when the wild violets appeared like magic in the little scrap of woods behind our backyard in Tallahassee. My sister Kris and I would make tiny bouquets, and we’d tuck the prettiest, most perfect flowers behind our teddy bears’ ears. Even though our toes would turn bright red with cold, we’d run barefoot through the woods, delighting in buds and fiddleheads, in the subtle signs of change.
In March, we picked loquats wherever we could find them—next to stores, in parking lots, in our neighbors’ yards. We were always hungry. Though I haven’t tasted a loquat in a long time, I remember them well. They were kind of like peaches and kind of like plums and kind of like apricots—pinkish orange and sweet and sour, with jewel-like, shiny seeds in the center. Loquats kept us fueled up for all the running and gathering we needed to do in spring. We were always picking things—harvesting. There was so much to take in, to try to hold close.
March was the best month for making bouquets. We’d pick armloads of flowers from our dad’s George Taber and Formosa azaleas, huge plants that formed magnificent, sweet-smelling pink and purple islands in the sea of henbit, partridgeberry, ponyfoot, and other weeds that made up our lawn. We’d pick dogwoods too, and redbuds and Japanese magnolias. March was the glory time, when the bridal veil bloomed in Rena and Earl’s yard next door and was so white it was almost blinding.
One of my favorite memories of spring is from the year I was 12, when our neighbors the Shaws had a party on their back deck and our family was invited. Not to crack on my rather uptight parents, but a party was a very rare thing for our family. Kris and I were wild with happiness, practically giddy. All the kids at the party were running around, squealing and screaming and playing in the dark. I remember there were candles and Dr. Peppers and barbecue shrimp galore, and the dogwoods glowed in the surrounding woods.
I’m so glad that spring’s wonder never wears off, that you can feel it all your life without any diminishment of its power, without any fading of the excitement. A few years ago, when my mom was 78, she remarked, rejoicing one gorgeous spring day, “Oh, the flowers and just . . . the air! It all gives you such a feeling! It’s like being in love, but way better than that!”
Mom is long divorced and may be a little cynical when it comes to romance, but I think she was onto something that day. The joy of spring is a feeling of love, and it is bigger than love for just one single person. It’s the feeling of being in love with all creation, with the pulse of life, with God. It’s the best feeling I can think of.
This weekend I was so happy because it rained! It finally rained–on Friday and Saturday! Afterward, the yard was so beautiful and green, quenched. The box turtles came out, and the frogs sang.
Rob and I spent Saturday doing two things: weeding all the beds and mulching a new bed on the south side of the front yard. To me it was a good day because I got to daydream and visit with various cats …
Wild white indigo in the meadow
Saturday was such a golden day, the oaks sporting new soft golden leaves and the front porch rockers wearing coats of golden pollen. Rob and I got to be outside in all the gold, all day. We mowed our lawn of weeds for the first time this year, and edged and ran the weedeater. These chores stretched on from early morning to late afternoon. I kept complaining about edging (because edging is my job and I never think Rob understands its rigors). I was saying, “Running the edging machine is nothing; that’s easy. The hard part is crawling around for hours afterward, pulling up all the grass and weeds that have crept into the beds.” I kept talking about how sore my wrists were. I was being very melodramatic.
The best parts of the day were when we took little breaks. We made limeade and had lunch at our Quincy Burger King, where they were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with emerald-green ketchup. In the afternoon, when we came in the house for a minute to have some peanuts, the cats gathered around to smell all the “interesting” smells on our clothes.
“Nothing makes you feel stinkier than ten cats gathered around smelling you,” Rob said.
The cats were crawling all over us, very intent on their smelling; they seemed to regard it as very important work–scientific research.
“All right, smellers,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s enough smelling.”
And I went outside and filled all our sad, empty porch pots with lush, fat ferns, petunias (pale pink and lavender), and fancy pink caladiums. Rob painted the front porch steps, and I weeded until it got dark.
The vegetable garden in soft focus
Frankie loves to sit on Rob’s knee.
Frankie looking poetic
Sweet little Babs. I love how she has her paws crossed.
This weekend was particularly satisfying because I got to spend most of it gardening. On Saturday Rob and I mowed and edged and ran the weedeater, which took up half the day but certainly resulted in …
I’m so glad it’s finally spring. Rob and I have been harvesting spinach and cabbage and planting peppers and tomatoes and reveling in the scent of wild azaleas. The picnic table is covered with pollen, and the columbine is blooming, and there are catbirds “meowing” …
