Yesterday was the first truly warm, sandal-worthy, day of spring. We took full advantage of it having a leisurely of frippery, frivolity, and function.
Yesterday was also the day the maples leafed out and as we drove around town the full glory of spring was unfurled around us. The light yellow green near transparence of new leaves almost thickening before our eyes and dancing in the sunlight was almost magical. The magnolias were thick with blossoms. The daffodils are everywhere, yellow and white and cheery, dancing in the sun. A few early tulips are up but not chez dooney. I don't seem to have any of the early tulips this year, an oversight I am sure, although I do tend to prefer the more exotic later varieties.
A minor note of interest. I have lived here for almost 30 years. For most of that time the maples fully leafed out consistently on May 2 or 3. You could count on that like you could count on the day that ice would first cover the Hudson. Neither of those "old" dates hold true anymore. Leaf day has been creeping forward, first toward May 1st, then gradually a few days earlier. The last two years it was nearly a week early, but this year the leaves suddenly opened on April 24, a full 9 days early.
Yesterday I finished reading Gwen Ifill's book "The Breakthrough". I enjoyed reading it, and I learned a few things about politicians I knew nothing about. Her portraits were insightful and she was able to capture the quality of each politician she discussed in a way that made them memorable. Ms. Ifill's prose is just like her voice on "The Newshour": fair, direct, and to the point. As I read I could imagine her speaking. The book reads like a series of interviews with a varied and interesting group of black politicians who show much of the change, variation, and conflict taking place in politics today. I think I personally would have liked a little more analysis, but then again, analysis is dry and it is really to early to determine what any of this "means". Ms. Ifill is a journalist not an analyst. There is a lot to think about in these profiles of the changing face of politics. It was a good, timely book, but not something I will come back to or read again.
Yesterday I went back on antihistamines after a week's reprieve. And I fell asleep to quickly to read any poems of Christopher Middleton. This volume of poetry has provided us with a lovely bedtime ritual, a poem or two or three before bed; read aloud, discussed, savored, shared. Tonight we shall have a poem before we "slumber in our sleep" to quote my Grandpa.
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4 responses to “Yesterday”
I love the way broad-leaf maples leaf out, dropping their pendant of flowers as they do. Our more dainty Japanese maples are also leafing out right now, so pretty, so fresh! Like your toes! We chose a very similar colour for the season’s first bare toes.
It’s amazing that you have so much awareness of your environment that you can tell when the trees bloom. What a wonderful connectedness to nature. And how scary that the blooming is happening 9 days early in just 3 years…
We go to a family camp in the Sierra Nevadas each summer, Lair of the Golden Bear. Old-timers say that week 2 has week 5 weather from when they started. That is, temperatures are warming up 3 weeks sooner in the early Summer. That empirical observation agrees with satellite observations that the Sierra snowpack melts three weeks sooner, too. That means, we run out of water in CA earlier in the year. We are headed toward (or already in) perpetual drought.
Pretty polish. What colour is it?
Spring has me on antihistamines too. Hate it!!!