Cooler air this morning heralds not the arrival of fall but its impending arrival. A house undergoing renovation still wears a white-on-white wicker porch swing. Twisted balusters and the siding – with the rounded bottom edge traditional to original houses in this neighborhood – gently flake milk-white paint. Whorls of bare wood, its DNA, peek […]
From the depths of my grief, I can only imagine yours. Lives so deeply entwined suddenly ripped asunder. I sleepwalk through my days, alternately numb and racked with pain. But I create for myself small joys, like fresh flowers in my bathroom. A small cap worn rakishly askew on my head. So I think it […]
Yesterday I went for a Christmas morning walk. The “kids,” one about to leave his twenties and the other halfway through, could not make it home. COVID restrictions. I met a couple pushing a stroller and stopped them briefly, learning it was their daughter’s second Christmas. I talked longer to a neighbor whose two sons, […]
The neighborhood air is scented by fresh buds of jasmine. At the plant store, gardenia bushes too have begun to bloom. Arriving back home, the rose bushes are a riot of blossoms. Maggie, my climber and the one with the strongest perfume, also displays the most vivid color. Deep fuchsia. After I nestle the lantana […]
It was raining when I set out but I didn’t mind. I was heading home. I’ll dry off and make hot tea, I thought. Turning to go home the long way around, I caught a whiff of the last few blooms of jasmine. Drops of water tap my helmet and spatter my glasses. The damp […]
Biking home yesterday, I stopped on the side of the road. A chaste tree was in full bloom, purple spires punctuating the greenery. I rubbed a leaf to transfer the spicy fragrance to my fingertips. A block farther on, I heard the call of a treefrog from a nearby ditch. I spent several minutes, peering […]
I took my bike ride even later this evening than yesterday. The light had turned blue. The mourning doves had started their calls. As I rode past a drain, I could hear the rushing of water.
Two and a half months into the stay-at-home. I’ve been biking every day for a month. Today a heavy rain and strong winds meant I went out in the early evening instead of the afternoon. Twigs and wet leaves litter the ground. Yesterday a hummingbird plant was backlit in the setting sun, a burning bush […]
I went for a walk this morning, the first in a very long time. The air was cool, the sky overcast. A neighbor’s bush had a halo of fire. Farther along, a tree with leaves of yellow had a vine, growing high in the canopy, dripping leaves of dull scarlet. Upon closer inspection, its trunk […]
A bitter cold snap has warmed and now the trees and the end of my block are shrouded in fog. I walk through air that still has a crisp bite. I walk quickly past frost-blackened foliage. Somewhere a rooster crows and crows again. The Christmas lights have disappeared from my neighbors’ roofline but red velvet […]