On Monday morning, I pulled on my worn old fleece jacket, stuffed the pockets with keys and phone, a hankie, and cough drops, and zipped it up to my chin. And then I set out: into the morning cool, into the birds' raucous chorus, into a new week. Out for the first morning walk in quite some time.
I walked around and down and through the park; on Monday, I walked a little further, too, because my goal right now is to push myself a bit. I listened to Lucinda Williams singing about cars on gravel roads; I thought her voice had an element of gravel, too, and I was glad of the New York Times article that led me to explore her music.
The fruit trees and the mock fruit trees blossomed gloriously as I walked beneath them on Monday. Late daffodils nodded at me. By the big house with the iron fence, perfect pink tulips bobbed their blooms, pugnacious, cheeky, and awfully pleased with themselves.
Trees were leafing, and dandelions rioted on lawns, which, even this early, all need a first good mow.
I didn't run into any other walkers, so I let the music guide me, and I walked home to a fresh pot of coffee and, right up until 3:20, anyway, an unscheduled day.
That was my first morning walk after COVID and after my trip to Austin, and it felt great. Lilacs scented the crisp cool air, and the new leaves seemed to charge the breeze with oxygen, and it seemed to me the essence of Spring was right there—a season when new things make sense and a lot of things (if not every darned thing) are possible.
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That day, early on, I at-homed it, except for taking another walk at the college with James; I stuffed the washer with well-traveled clothes, and I baked a peach crisp and a chocolate sour cream cake. I tried a new recipe for fudge frosting, and it was just right; it fell somewhere between hot fudge sauce and chocolate buttercream icing. James and I tried the cake right after lunch; martyrs, we were, offering up our taste buds to the unknown.
Mark had peach crisp for a snack, and then he had more for breakfast the next morning—fruit, you know, is a worthy breakfast food. That was a new recipe, too, and it passed muster, and it seemed right that recipes tried in burgeoning spring should succeed and please.
And later on Monday, I was happy to have a no-complications, faster than fast, doctor's check-up, and to attend a board meeting that wrapped up in 45 minutes—efficient and fluff-free.
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And then Tuesday was another day off, and I washed the new tablecloths I'd ordered, and which I found fit perfectly—I'd been worried about that. Tablecloths! I pictured dinners with special dishes—manicotti in red sauce, a plump baked chicken flanked by fluffy mashed potatoes, maybe a stir-fry served on special plates with colorful napkins, a little white wine, maybe, in a sparkling wine glass, and a tablecloth grounding the whole event.
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That Tuesday, I went to the library and picked up some books I'd reserved, and found, when I arrived home, that another book had arrived in the mail. I stacked up five volumes, and on the top of the pile I put the murder mystery I'd been traveling with and hadn't quite finished. There was a fair quiver of excitement in that book pile, and I was excited to learn who done it in my current book, and then my mind was playing with the idea of which book might be next.
Non-fiction?
Novel?
The final fantasy from a Susan Cooper omnibus James bought me two Christmases ago, and that I'm using using as my default read?
Even in the area of reading, possibilities exploded.
Spring for sure, is here.
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The Austin trip, with its visit to the LBJ Library and its Lady Bird exhibit, had me mulling the concept of history—and of the vision of history we accept because someone we deem expert tells us how things were. My perception of Mrs. Johnson was limited,--was in fact, just plain wrong. So I ordered a biography called Lady Bird: Hiding in Plain Sight, and I wondered what other historical facts I have accepted without question.
Maybe Spring is the time to explore unquestioned notions. For instance, I have always marveled that, in a culture which many would label traditional or conservative, many, many women, in the late 1880's and early 1900's, went to work in pottery factories. They painted the pieces that we now treasure, mugs and plates and bowls; they were working women in a time when women were expected to be at home, kitchen- and kid-bound. They were not doing what history might suggest women were doing in those days long ago, and I thought I might explore this a bit.
At the library I discovered that not only were women working IN the factories; at least one woman was running the factory, stepping in when a son died and a husband was incapacitated—stepping in and doing a wonderfully successful job.
Yet when I went online to find more about the woman, her name did not appear in any on-line histories of the company I perused.
And so I thought about researching women from the area who did amazing things and have been, largely, unsung, and today I met with a man on the history society board who told me about a female seminary that operated in my town from the early 1800's to just after 1900. Young women came from Cleveland and Cincinnati to board there and get an education, and young women from right here went to school there, too.
I never knew there was an all-girls' school right here in town for many years. I started getting the research itch.
I started wondering what else I don't know about the history that rises and swells and washes up, right here and right now.
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After that meeting, James and I went for an early lunch at a wonderful, family-owned restaurant; on the way home, we stopped and bought a big bag of potting soil, which James very kindly wrestled into the trunk of my car for me.
Today I will start potting the most exuberant of the tomato seedlings, gentling them into big-kid pots—kind of, I think, the equivalent of a toddler bed for sprouts. We'll find window space for the pots; it's still not warm enough for plants to be outdoors. And I'll refill the empty egg carton pods with plant starter, and we'll get some pepper seeds started. I have a tiny Tupperware pot filled with pepper seeds, and I don't know what kind they are. I saved jalapeno seeds and sweet pepper seeds (yellow, red, orange, and green), and I saved habanero seeds, too.
We will plant them all and see what we get. And we'll let what grows determine what dishes we fix come summer, come hot July and muggy August, come the days when supper sizzles on the grill and we light fires in the pit at dusk and life settles down to smoky and slow.
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Yesterday, I got in my car to drive home from work, and it was 87 degrees hot. Today the weather is perfect: softly sunny and 75 degrees. Tomorrow it will rain all day. On Sunday, the high will be 48.
Anything can happen this week, weather-wise, and it looks like anything will.
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The Larry-tree, a dogwood that was 18 inches high when Larry carefully dug it up and transported it here from his beautiful garden, is taller now than I am, and it is filled with blossoms. And white petals drift across the driveway's blacktop. Bugs scurry; worms squirm.
It is Spring, and just below the surface, things are stirring, things are moving, and that fertile soil will bring things, expected and unexpected, forth.
And some things will be weeds and pesky, but others will delight.
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Suddenly spring, suddenly spring…those words keep churning, bouncing around the bony cavern.
And suddenly I find there is nothing for it but to be hopeful, to anticipate, to believe.
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