Back from a week in DC, where there is still a nip in the air, I am driving down a main thoroughfare when I notice a cluster of blue bonnets. They are huddled at the base of a street light as if it were only within the amber of its light that they felt safe enough to bloom.

The weather here has turned warm. I sweep the house clean and leave the doors open for the fresh air, it too, to sweep out the rooms.

I deadhead the rose bush in my front yard, bringing inside the one bloom remaining. I clip a sprig of lavender; several small flowers cling to the curves of the stem.

I use a small black vase. I prop the deep pink rose into one arm of the lavender. The other arm reaches down toward the dining room table, changing its mind at the last minute to curve inward, toward the belly of the vase.

At its tip, several small flowers curve out and away, like the arm of a ballerina.

The air is beginning to smell of spring. The buds come slowly at first, shy, like a young girl at her first day of dance class. Then with a rush of enthusiasm trees burst forth with pink, lavender, and green.

The hawthorn beside my doorway has small white flowers with a dark pink center.

They smell of my grandmother’s face powder.

Earlier this week I stood ironing. My son’s school slacks needed pressing and I had a wrinkled blouse. It was a weekday morning, early enough that everyone else was still in bed and the house was quiet. I dragged out the ironing table and stood it up, plugged in the iron.

I am one of those people who loves to iron. The Virgo in me loves to see the creation of order. The wrinkled made smooth, the limp made crisp.

As I listened to the thump and slide of the iron, my eye fell on the countertop across from me. There stood a green Depression glass bowl filled with oranges. And one green pear.

It’s gotten cold here again. The sky is gray and the wind is blowing. The yard grows bare. Most of the four o’clocks have died. Only one sturdy plant holds its ground. No blooms to be seen and even the black peppercorn seeds have dropped to the earth below where, come summer, bright fuschia petals will unfurl.

The gardenia bushes are still glossy green, though no fragrant creamy white blossoms are to be expected for months yet.

It is the rose bush in the corner of my front yard which surprises me. Long a shy and reluctant bloomer, now, due no doubt to some combination of cold and deeper roots, it flourishes. A lighter pink than my perfumed Maggies, which anchor the other side of the yard, the small roses run riot. They reach up over and through the fence, brushing the top of the rosemary bush.

On the other side of the fence, the rosemary bush nurtures tiny purple blossoms among the long, flat leaves which, when crushed, leave on my hands the smell of healing and remembrance.

Yesterday I took my time rising. When I went out for my walk, the air had warmed from the cold snap earlier in the week, though the sky was still gray.

On one of the wider streets, I looked up into a tree and found a long slender branch, the thickness of my thumb, had grown from the third lowest branch and meandered its way upward, winding around the tree’s trunk.

As I tried to follow its path, I found the treetop filled with mourning doves. Most swayed with the wind, one fluttered to a new branch.

Later, after I’d returned home, I heard a rushing sound. Going to the door, I discovered a steady rain.