Philosophy of Plants

One result of the pandemic and spending so much time at home has been my discovery that I can actually parent plants without killing them. I would attribute my improved green thumb to being older and wiser and having finally accepted that overwatering is both the biggest temptation and the biggest mistake. If I’m honest, though, I think just having better light is the real secret to my current success.

When I moved in here, I was all set to spend time taking care of myself after several years of having no home of my own. The pandemic was starting to wind up, and everybody else was staying home, too, discovering the joys (and pains) of enforced domestic life. I had already experienced a period of more or less involuntary solitude during several years of job-hunting. During that time, I worked on learning to make a proper biscuit, did some writing, and read a lot. I wouldn’t say that was a happy time, but I think I made the most of it.

This time, beginning in a new apartment with some difficult years behind me, I was happy to just concentrate on making a home. The first time I walked in here, I was able to picture just where everything should go and what it would look like once my things were here. I instantly knew where I wanted my Christmas tree to be, even though the holidays were months away. I also knew I wanted flowers on the porch.

I started my plant adventures with porch plants only: container flowers, and a pothos for an accent table that I ended up bringing inside at the end of the first summer. The pothos liked being outside but seemed to enjoy the indoors even more, and the flowers loved the porch. Slowly, as I developed a routine of caring for one plant, I’d add another one. The pothos went back outside for the second summer, along with more flowers, and I got an African violet to take its place in the living room. That was my one failure, as I couldn’t seem to figure out what it wanted before it gave up the ghost and wilted quite away.

The African violet didn’t seem to like too much of anything, either water or sun, and was extremely insulted by any moisture that might accidentally touch its leaves. My grandmother had African violets on her kitchen windowsill for years, and this had lulled me into thinking they were low maintenance, though after I thought about it, I realized hers must have had a northerly exposure. The stronger light here didn’t suit them (or might have if I hadn’t overwatered them first), but—oh, well. They were an impulse buy, so lesson learned. It was like trying to take care of a debutante.

I went about acquiring plants with some method in mind (usually): I did research to find out which ones would be likely to do well here without requiring too much fussing. If it was easy-care and I liked the way it looked, I’d go to the nursery center and look for one. Last year, I got a spider plant mixed in with a zebrina for the porch once I decided to give the pothos a permanent spot inside. When I brought it in last fall, I had to cut most of the zebrina out, but the spider plant is still thriving. After I rearranged some things to accommodate my washer, I got a snake plant for a bookcase that had been promoted to the dining room. Although I worried at first that it wouldn’t get enough light where it is, it has proved me wrong by insistently sending up new shoots.

While my assemblage is pretty modest, it’s added what I now know was a missing dimension in my past living spaces. The splashes of green give color to the rooms and serve as reminders that even in the mist of crisis, life goes on, patiently putting up shoots that grow by infinite degrees, making the most of all the light and water that come their way. I may never be a master gardener, but I think I have come to an understanding with my plant children. I give them what they need and then just try to stay out of the way.

The Ghost Trees of Spring

One thing about being without a permanent address over the last couple of years: I’ve gotten to know other parts of town that I didn’t know well before and probably wouldn’t have gotten to know at all in other circumstances. My opinion about which parts of town are desirable and which aren’t has changed several times; I’ve driven through entire neighborhoods I had never explored before; I’ve found out which streets really have the best holiday decorations; and I’ve gotten used to the gigantic Kroger stores that dwarf the smaller neighborhood store I used to frequent, which now seems small and cramped to me.

Driving west one winter morning over a year ago, I experienced a sunrise that turned the trees ahead of me into a molten gold, a particular shade of intense light I’d never seen before. I wasn’t used to traveling in that direction at that time of the morning and had never caught the sun at quite that angle before: a revelation. I discovered suburban neighborhoods that looked much older than they are because of the way in which mature trees had been incorporated into their development; I was surprised at how quickly they had assumed a mature appearance, because I remembered when they were brand-new.

I found out that the crabapple trees on a certain stretch of road look like ghost trees at night, something you would only know if you traveled that particular street after dark during a very brief period in spring when the trees are flowering. I discovered that downtown no longer seems like the center of things. If there is a center, it is one that seems to travel with me, like the Self, whose “center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” I’ve experienced the magic of autumn nights in streets swirling with leaves and rain. I’ve noted how much nocturnal life there is, even within city limits; a fox here, a pair of coyotes there, rabbits dashing across the roads on unknown errands. I passed a house with a horse in the front yard. I craned my neck, just this morning, to see if what appeared to be gigantic birds on a suburban roof were actually real birds or merely chimney pots or something equally mundane.

I’ve looked with longing at cozy windows, lighted at night; imagined what kind of tiny home I would design and where I would put it if I were building my own home; visited the Jot ’Em Down Store twice while driving out in the country; and photographed public art that has popped up in unexpected places all over town. I’ve passed a street sign that brings up a memory of someone who once lived there, long ago, a street that I had never seen until now, the person who lived there long since moved on. I’ve discovered that the achingly beautiful phenomenon that is spring is equally achingly beautiful all over town. I’ve found out what it’s like to have Starbucks as your living room and the public library as your drawing room. Not quite as cozy and private as I’d like, but there you have it.

Little by little, I’ve come across people that I hadn’t seen in a long time and discovered that the past is still present, that there is a sense of continuity between earlier periods of my life and where I am now. I’ve realized just how much living in one particular spot gives you a certain outlook, certain paths to trod, and particular points of view, and how not being tied to one spot expands your outlook. I’m still processing what this has all meant to me and probably will do so for a long time to come, but I will say that I’ve probably gained something from floating free, as it were, through my adopted hometown. I have a perspective on it that could never be matched by someone living settled at home, viewing the world through their front window. Some of it has to do with the strangeness but persistence of life, mixed with a fondness for this corner of the earth and its natural beauty, unfiltered through all the seasons.

Lark Metaphysics

I don’t know if this happens to you, but I sometimes get a lift without knowing why. That is, I sort of know why, in the sense of being able to describe the circumstance and its effect on me, though I may not know exactly why that particular thing affects me as it does. Last night, after dinner (and a good dinner, too, not consisting of a sandwich or fast food), I was driving to Starbucks. We’d had heavy rain earlier, the pavements were wet, and scraps of gray clouds were racing across a stormy sky. There was a kind of pearly light, for all that the weather was gloomy, which probably came from the reflections off all those wet surfaces. The sky looked manic and wild, as it often does here after a spring rain, and that was the key, I guess: I was suddenly looking at a spring sky rather than a winter sky. There was a feeling of cleanness, as if the rain had washed away not only the remnants of snow, but something more.

It had snowed just the day before, and the roads were so slippery then that I was afraid of an accident on the way to work. Now, suddenly, it was the moment that happens every year—though never in the same way or on the same day—when you suddenly feel things poised to change. The scurrying clouds, the tension in the air that comes with a thunderstorm, the difference in the light—all contributed to a feeling of movement and rebounding life. I could feel my spirits rising simply in response to that sky. I learned the importance of appreciating beauty where you find it a long time ago, but over the last year, I’ve become even more grateful for transcendent moments like this.

When you live in your car, you appreciate sitting under a solid roof and looking out at the rain from a dry place, as I did later in the evening at Starbucks. There were many times last summer when I had to sit up in the car until midnight before it was cool enough to go to sleep, but I was still enchanted by the sight of falling stars—and remembered to make a wish, you’d better believe it—during a meteor shower (for about two seconds, I imagined I was camping, but I couldn’t sustain it). I enjoyed the “nightlife” on whatever street I happened to be parked on: one night, it could be coyotes, the next night, it might be a prowling cat or a pair of opossums. I enjoyed looking at sunrises and the golden-leafed roof created by the autumn trees on one street. Most of the time, car camping is pretty miserable, so those fleeting moments of beauty stand out all the more. When you get a chance to try it, you’ll see what I mean.

This morning, the feeling of well-being persisted. I’m not normally a churchgoer, but I was stopped at a light and noticed a small red-brick church on the corner that I’d passed many times. In the mild sunshine (seemingly brighter and purer than it had been the day before), that little church looked so emblematic of Sunday morning that I wanted to write a story about it. It’s been a while since I had that Sunday morning feeling that’s an amalgam of peacefulness, restfulness, and a sensation of things having been freshly washed, but it was quite pleasant. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate that feeling.

There is a song from the musical Carousel that was sung at high school graduations when I was in school and may be still, for all I know. Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has the lines: “At the end of a storm is a golden sky / And the sweet silver song of a lark.” I often think of the lark’s song when the sky clears after a storm, though I’ve never heard it. Last night, I could almost hear it. It was like that moment in The Polar Express when the hero boy rings the Christmas bell and senses he’s about to hear it for the first time. I’m not saying that there is any relation at all between this feeling and anything that’s about to happen: I’m only stating that I felt it and was glad I felt it.

Hey, Rodgers and Hammerstein? Songs of a lark? Hero boys and Christmas bells? I get it that it’s not hip and if you happen to be, say, a millennial, this is all hopelessly maudlin. (Maudlin itself being another old-fashioned word.) But if you ever find yourself suddenly on the edge of a dark wood after an extended sojourn within, you may remember reading this and have a different outlook. I’m not saying it’s certain, mind you. But it could happen.

I’m gonna have to say I think the good dinner had something to do with it, too, all those greens and that tilapia starting to course through my system. And then there was the vegan coconut pie . . . But that’s a different story entirely.

Magnetic Poetry

While packing this week, I started looking at things I hadn't looked at in a while, the way you do when you're shifting items from one place to another. Since my head is too full of moving details to leave much room for topical inspiration, I thought I'd share something I found in my Magnetic Poetry Kit Book of Poetry, discovered as I was clearing a shelf the other day. A magnetic poetry kit may seem like a kitschy item, but its use fits in with my approach to poetry. More about that later, but right now here is the poem I wrote with it, at the kitchen table in my last apartment, if I'm not mistaken--which makes the poem nearly 20 years old.

(Untitled)

the avenue to love
has summer in it
minute tendrils
grow from cracks
at evening
leaves blossom by morning
an immense and secret bouquet
a staggering work
of liquid song wind
wanting

and dirt

I don't think it's bad for a poem written, most likely, after dinner, one of the first I composed with the poetry kit. I'm not sure I could have written it if not for the kit, and I'll tell you why. It's my compression theory of poetry: the more constraints you put on writing, whether it's time, number of syllables, availability of words, or something else, the more an inner censor is silenced, letting you compose without restraint. I guess you could also call it the Poetry Paradox, and it applies to all writing, as far as I've been able to discover. You narrow your choices and make do with limitations, and the energy you don't spend ransacking the entire English language opens a third poetic eye. It's like all those frugal housewives making do with rations during World War II and somehow coming up with genius recipes. Some of the best dishes are composed of simple ingredients. It's the same with words.

I was writing about author's intent a few weeks ago, and although I can't remember exactly when I wrote this poem--I'm guessing sometime between Fall 1998 and Summer 1999--I seem to recall being in the grip of some passion, requited or unrequited, at the time. It's not a bitter poem, but rather a sort of celebratory one, and that's saying something considering how frustrated I remember feeling then. I liked it well enough that I left it on the magnetic poetry board, and when I opened it up, it was just as it was when I wrote it. It's been on my shelf ever since I moved in here. I remember that I was experimenting with growing kitchen herbs in windowsill containers around the time I wrote the poem, which may account for the botanical imagery.

It's a very summery poem and seems appropriate for ushering in the month of June. I like the idea of a secret garden taking hold imperceptibly and growing into something vast and wonderful, without permission and without fanfare. It's a little like Coleridge's secret ministry of frost, except that it celebrates a different season.

May all the avenues you travel this summer blossom with minute trendrils and fragrant bouquets in your wake and may they make a soft place for your footsteps to land. I'm hoping the same for myself.

Ecclesiastes Says

You know what they say about the weather in Kentucky, right? "If you don't like it, wait five minutes." I've actually heard that other places lay claim to the same quip, and that I cannot attest to, but here, it's basically just a description of the facts--especially this time of year. Spring is very changeable.

Just the other day, I was covering up with sunscreen and turning on the air conditioning for a drive to Louisville on an absolutely gorgeous afternoon. The passing scene consisted of baby blue sky, greening fields, and redbuds, and the road was practically singing under the tires. Yesterday afternoon, while I was at home, intent on an online job application, a storm that looked to be God's answer to Job blew in and caught me almost unaware. While I was fixing dinner, all hell broke loose, if you picture hell as consisting of ominous rumbling, black skies, bilious light, and torrential rain. I was tending several pots on the stove when the noise caused me to look out, and it occurred to me that I might have to run for the closet, pasta or no pasta, if it got much worse. Things settled down later, but it turned cold overnight.

Today, I was back to my down jacket and gloves; there was a cold rain spitting intermittently, and spring seemed like a dream from another lifetime. I had the heat on in the car, and a turtleneck suddenly seemed like a great idea again. That's nothing, though. I have actually seen it snow in April (and once, long ago, even in May), so unless we get a blizzard, almost anything else is business as usual.

I should really be writing about the book I finished the other day, but I'm slightly exhausted by the effort I've put into job applications, so you'll have to excuse me for putting that off. Trying to discuss the ins and outs of Edith Wharton's love life seems a bit much under the circumstances, though the book was interesting and not what I was expecting. (I thought it was going to be like The Bostonians but it was more like The Paris Wife. OK by me.) I'm only too glad to be busy with applications, but what I would really welcome is results. It would be pretty ridiculous for a woman with several college degrees, numerous skills, and considerable personal charm to end up on public assistance, but that appears to be the direction I'm going in. Don't say I didn't warn you. (Yes, it is pretty weird.)

It looks like the weather is trending warm again starting tomorrow, and we should have a nice weekend. So much back and forth could be disconcerting for someone who isn't used to it, but most people around here are hip to the facts of Kentucky weather. You can go from one of those storybook days when it's almost impossible to wish yourself anywhere else to a lowering day of wet winds and chilling rain that makes you ask yourself "What am I thinking?" "Who ordered this?" in the mere blink of an eye. Oh, well, to everything there is a season--even unseasonable spring weather.

Essay on Color

I've been watching the news this week with interest, as I usually do, albeit it has been more entertaining than usual, with all the comings and goings at Trump Tower. Some people have been highly critical of the president-elect for creating such a spectacle with his pre-presidential planning and Cabinet interviews, but I've got to say that I personally have found it riveting. I don't mind a little flair, if that is someone's style, despite my own preference for low drama.

Before you remonstrate, I just want to point out that we've had any number of presidents-elect who've conducted their planning with absolutely complete fidelity to decorum who turned out to be duds once they actually inhabited the White House. So my thinking is, might not the reverse also be true: couldn't someone who colors outside the lines in the beginning (and possibly throughout) have more to offer than it appears? I don't know if this is the case, but I hope it is. I do know that I was laughing about reports that Mr. Trump spent Thanksgiving weekend asking people who they thought should be secretary of state. If that's not a true story, it ought to be.

In the face of all the hand-wringing, prognostications of disaster, CNN anchors practically in tears, and at least one Democratic senator having a conniption over a Trump advisor, I suppose you think the least I can do is offer some sort of mythic interpretation that helps make sense of the unfamiliar landscape we're in. The story that comes most vividly to mind with Mr. Trump is a Yoruba tale about Eshu, the divine trickster, who brought two neighbors to fisticuffs by walking between their fields wearing a vari-colored cap that looked different depending on which side you viewed it from. When the neighbors started fighting about the color of the cap, Eshu made sure to walk past them again going the opposite way, just to maximize confusion and ensure that they were hopping mad. *

You may be thinking, yes, well, it's always been obvious that Mr. Trump is a trickster, and we'll all be the worse for it. That may be, but Eshu, at least, is a character with a purpose: he creates discord in order to tear away the surface appearance of things and let the light of the divine shine through. Whether Mr. Trump has any similar designs or not is something we'll have to wait and see. You probably find the notion laughable, but I'm not altogether sure what he intends.

Since I've been a letdown to you on the Stop Trump front, maybe now you'll let me get on to what I really want to write about, which is what a glorious day it was today. Since we went back to Eastern Standard Time, I've been rearranging my days to get the full benefit of daylight as winter approaches. I went out for a walk in the middle of the afternoon one day last week and was stunned at how beautiful the light was. In this season and at that particular hour, it was so cool and clear that it looked like morning light.

Since then, I've been going out at various times and have seen the light at different angles. This afternoon it was like a holiday just to be out in the sun, to watch all those puffy clouds adrift in cerulean blue and to consider the colors of the trees, gone now to a more somber end of the spectrum in most cases but still stunning, with bursts of bright red and yellow punctuating the browns and russets. It's as if you got to the crayon box and someone had taken out the popular colors, the aquas and the violets and the hot pinks, and you were left with the burnt siennas, the ochers, and the chartreuses. If you stop and look, though, it's wonderful how well they look all mixed up together against a blue sky.

I thought a few weeks ago that it would be hard to beat the late afternoon light hitting the tops of the trees and turning them to flame at sunset, but taking walks at different times of the day has been a revelation. I've noticed a pair of trees that I've passed thousands of times without ever appreciating the unusual shade of red they exhibit, something that is only apparent in stronger light. I thought about it today and realized that it's like the color of ripe summer fruit, like fresh strawberries, a bit incongruous for December, maybe, but that's what it looks like. When the sun goes behind a cloud, the light goes flat and you don't see the colors at their best advantage. Being on foot, as opposed to driving by, also helps you slow down enough to appreciate the subtle beauty of the late fall to early winter transition.

I startled two robins down by the creek today and watched them flutter off. I passed maples and oaks, evergreens and hollies, magnolias and ginkgos and numerous others. I heard the wind in the leaves and spotted many nests in partially bare branches. I enjoyed the crisp air. I thought about the old saying, "In December, keep yourself warm and sleep." There's some wisdom to this, but there's also something to be gained by going out to meet the day, especially when it's as beautiful as today was. A little Vitamin D is never amiss, and you can always have hot chocolate afterward.

* (Source: "Legba and Eshu: Writers of Destiny" in Robert D. Pelton's The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight)

City Pastoral

There was a popular book in the 70s called The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, which I still have on my bookshelf. It consisted of nature notes taken from the journal of Edith Holden, an Englishwoman in Warwickshire who incorporated her observations of weather, seasonal changes, and plant and animal life into her writing. It was nothing earth-shattering, just closely observed details of such occurrences as the finding of a bird's nest, the first wildflowers of spring, or a walk on a blustery day. I sometimes feel I might be turning into Miss Holden, though I don't have her talent as an illustrator (she included paintings with her notes).

She would likely have found a walk in our local arboretum a little tame, given as she was to striking off on foot across the countryside in defiance (or actual absence) of roads, but for us city dwellers it's nice to have a park to roam in with plenty of divergent paths if the main track gets too crowded. There are certain things you're unlikely to see, such as bears or wolves, but there are plenty of birds and small mammals. Unlike Miss Holden, I don't know the names of all the birds, trees, and flowers I see, but I sometimes look them up. Once in the spring, I was so amazed at the beauty of a flowering tree in the garden that I asked one of the horticulturists what it was (it's a Japanese Kwanzan, and it looks like a tree you'd see in paradise).

With the recent re-landscaping of the field next to the arboretum and the introduction of a widened and re-contoured watercourse, I've noticed some new wildlife. If we were on the edge of town instead of in the center, there would probably be deer, but as it is there are some new species of birds. The smallish, quick birds with the piping calls might be terns; I've also noticed a pair of hawks or falcons that seem to have a nest in the vicinity. They land on the tops of light posts, looking magisterial, and call to one another; the other day I saw a smaller bird darting out of the way, as swiftly as I've ever see a bird move, as one of these larger creatures flew over its path to a lamp post. The smaller bird moved as if it had the fear of God in it, which it probably did.

That might have been the same day I came across a rabbit sitting bolt upright near the woods. I often see rabbits nosing around in the grass, but I've never seen one in such a watchful pose; he didn't even seem to mind me very much, and I was curious as to what had made him so alert. I felt for a moment that I was living in Watership Down and the rabbit was about to turn around and announce some momentous change affecting the neighborhood. That same day, or maybe a different day, there was a cat on the other side of the arboretum, intent on something I couldn't see in the bushes. I would have liked to know what it was, though I'm sure it was only a drama involving field mice or chipmunks, or perhaps groundhogs, which I have also seen.

One sees butterflies of course, and bees, and fireflies at twilight. Last year, there were large numbers of June bugs in the park, scattered throughout the grass and covering the walkways, though I have yet to see one this season. There are always robins and cardinals, and I sometimes see bluejays flashing showily through the trees. I had always assumed that the cooing sound I commonly hear is pigeons, but when I started hearing it in the evening, I wondered if it might be an owl instead. When it starts getting dark, I sometimes see a bat or two flitting overhead. Most magical of all, a bird landed on a fence near me the other evening, of a type I don't think I've ever encountered before, with an unusually melodious and liquid song. I thought of a nightingale, though I don't know if we even have them here. If it hadn't been dusk, I would have gotten a better look at it.

Two nights ago, I was sitting on a bench under a tree in a quiet spot, watching the fireflies as they rose twinkling out of the grass. It's a quintessential Kentucky activity to watch fireflies on summer evenings, and I was making the most of it when I realized I could hear the piping of some of those shore birds coming from a little distance. It was a bit incongruous but not unpleasantly so, a noticeably new voice in a land-locked pastoral of woods and fields.

Tonight's highlight: I came across a beetle of some sort that had gotten turned over at the edge of the sidewalk, unable to right itself. I know it's better not to intervene in nature, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for this little insect, which was waving its legs in the air for all it was worth. I put my shoe next to it, and it instantly seized the opportunity to grab hold and turn itself over. I hope I'm not in too much trouble with naturalists for doing that, but I really feel that I was just helping him to help himself. I watched him for a while as he made his way through the grass, apparently well on his way to wherever he had been trying to go, though he looked a little stunned.

If I were Miss Holden, I would have pulled out my drawing materials and made a sketch, so you could have seen the beetle as I saw it--ungainly, but determined--but I only have words, so that will have to do. The park was crowded tonight, and I went off the path a few times myself for a little extra room, but the evening was pleasant, and there was a pretty pink sunset. I saw one of the hawks floating over the parking lot as I was on my way home, and he peeled off to the right as I watched, followed half a minute later by the second one. I wouldn't mind knowing what they're saying to one another (they're very vocal), but there's no reason I can think of why they should tell me.

Stormy

We have been sitting under clouds here for the last several days, although it's nothing to complain about compared to the recent weather south and east of us. Within the last week or two, we've gone from whirling snow to sunny warmth to thunderstorms--and back again. Yesterday, I had to decide whether to go out for a walk in the face of a forecast calling for rain and wind, including gusts of 30 to 40 miles an hour. It was the wind that really concerned me, because I wasn't charmed by the thought of flying debris. In the end, I bundled up, grabbed an umbrella, and went, motivated by the principle that if I couldn't actually see flying houses or garbage cans from the window, it was probably best to get some exercise.

I know some people lost their lives in storms this week, so I'm not making light of the subject. I felt the same way I felt on that hot night at the end of July, when I had to judge whether it was better to stay in or to go out on a muggy evening with heat lightning causing a major ruckus in the distance. (I elected to go out on that occasion, too, and have a clear memory of nervously circling the Arboretum while a spectacular light show illuminated the horizon north and east.) Yesterday (as on that other occasion) I was somewhat reassured to see a number of other people out and about, although it's true that you can't always go by the safety in numbers thing. We could all have been swept up by a wind shear and deposited somewhere unlikely like Oz--but it turned out that the wind, though cold, wasn't that fierce. It was unrelenting but no more than you might expect from a typical day in March. We were fortunate.

It certainly looked more like March than February, with some new grass and even a few crocuses poking up here and there. The sky was very stormy, though only a few drops of rain fell while I was out. The most startling thing I saw was someone walking down the street wearing shorts, which I did think was pushing it a bit for such a blustery day. I was wearing down, ear warmers, a scarf, and gloves and felt comfortable except that the wind kept pushing my hair into my eyes. My fears of getting caught in a downpour were never realized, and I got home without having had to open my umbrella.

There is something invigorating about being outside when Nature is asserting itself as it was yesterday. An ordinary neighborhood walk takes on a heightened air of conflict, since you're no longer strolling easily along under calm skies but are actually pushing your way forward. The landscape that had seemed so tame the day before is suddenly, unmistakably alive all around you, rushing into your eyes and ears and forcing you, in turn, to assert yourself against it. Crossing a bridge over a ditch swollen with rainwater suddenly brings to mind a mountain stream, and while it's not nearly as dramatic as climbing a mountain, it'll do for the suburbs.

So I was glad I went, not only for the exercise but for the sight of that turbulent sky, full of dark clouds when I set out, and transformed into a tent-like covering by the time I got home. It hung over everything like a gray canvas tossed by the wind, only revealing regions of pale blue at the margins. It was an arresting color of blue, and I had to think of what it reminded me of. I finally decided it was like the blue soap of a steel wool pad, clean and metallic but very, very cool, as if the weather were washing the sky clean. It's just too bad it's not that easy to take care of things here on the ground.

Winnowing

Last week, I didn't wax poetic about the beauties of autumn, so this week, I will. A lot of us have mixed feelings about fall, but it has its compensations. Why it is that I find myself wanting to write about it in rapturous tones every year might seem a bit mysterious, since it actually isn't my favorite season. I've thought about that, and here's what I think explains it: the movement of summer into fall is more momentous than anything else in the year other than the transition from winter into spring.

Around here, spring changes into summer almost imperceptibly, and there's not that much difference between a day in late autumn and an average winter day, at least to look at. All the bright colors of mid-autumn, the golden light, and the harvest festivals mark the culmination of the year and its fulfillment. It's a burst of exuberance before things settle down for the long sleep of winter. Underlying the celebration is the knowledge that the light and warmth of summer are going, and there's cold and snow and windshield-scraping somewhere ahead, but somehow you don't think about that on a beautiful Indian summer afternoon with leaves drifting lazily down and acorns crunching underfoot.

I seem to recall past times when fall colors were brighter than they have been in recent years--I may even have read something about climate change potentially affecting the vibrancy of autumn leaves--but I'm not sure I could reliably call it a trend. It does seem to me that both spring and autumn have been somewhat delayed in their arrivals of late. On the other hand, I remember a particular autumn day in college when a class held outside a few days before Thanksgiving had the benefit of a gorgeous blue sky and leaves of every riotous hue imaginable still on the trees. I usually think of October as the colorful month, but that's proof it isn't always the case.

You can be happy in any season. I've been elated on gloomy days and out-of-sorts on sunny ones and think it's best to let the seasons be the background to life, not the map to it. Still, it's never bad to enjoy the things that only happen at certain times of the year. Emerson said that "each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again." Earlier this evening, for instance, when I took something to the recycling bin, I glanced toward the west and noticed, behind the trees, a sunset not particularly showy but unique in being a particular shade of orange I don't remember seeing in the sky before. I had to look at it for a minute to try to figure out what it was. Apricot? Peach? The color of a creamy orange sherbet, melted in a bowl? A quiet color, but a pretty one, framed by houses and subtly variegated foliage, and I bet I never see another sunset quite like it.

If there's any poet who captured the feeling of autumn successfully, it has to have been Keats. I think of his ode "To Autumn" every fall, and various lines about "mellow fruitfulness" and "ripening to the core" start running through my head round about September each year. There's his famous personification of autumn as a woman(?) winnowing her hair in a barn, a sort of late-in-the-year Botticelli or Pre-Raphaelite type, I would guess. A lovely image, and a poetic one, though I can't help thinking that if I had a barn and saw such a creature sitting in it, I'd have to ask her what she was doing there. It's my practical streak, at war with my aesthetic side. (You never know--she might be the Loathly Damsel.) Even poetry has its limits.

But enough of that . . . it's almost time to start baking gingerbread cookies for Halloween.

Libation for the Green Man

I saw a picture of the Green Man on someone's website yesterday, and that got me looking up images of this popular, virile, but somewhat mysterious nature spirit; you know, the one with the face wreathed in greenery and vines. Some renderings make him look jolly, sort of like a Santa Claus with vines growing out of his mouth, but many images depict him more ambiguously, so that you're not really sure you'd want to see him peering at you from out the foliage. Some are downright scary (look up the Bamberg Green Man for one of the less friendly-looking nature spirits you'll ever see).

I think B and C above are closer to the truth where the Green Man is concerned; a nature spirit should seem remote and inhuman, because he is. He's not your pal, and he wants you to know that; hence the inscrutable expression. If he's smiling about something, be assured it's not necessarily something you yourself would find amusing.

The joke's all on you where he's concerned. For instance, the Green Man seems just the type who would think up a concept like pollen. While it's lovely to see all those butterflies and bees spreading the stuff all over everything (and thank goodness they do), it's not so lovely in the form of allergens. Whatever it is that bothers me in the spring is fairly mild in the scheme of things but enough of a nuisance some years to be annoying. So why can't we just enjoy the flowers and the trees without all this sinus congestion and sneezing? Because the Green Man is a trickster, that's why. It's kind of a reminder that nature isn't a show put on for our amusement. Tornadoes and spring floods are other reminders of the same type, and of course there are many others.

In one mythology class I took, there was some discussion of the ancient concept of sacrificing to the gods as a way of showing respect for the powers and forces that surround us. It sounds old-fashioned and superfluous today, but I think it's the spirit of humility and the recognition that there are larger forces at work (larger than us), not the burnt offering or the fatted calf itself, that's beneficial. The spirit of our age tends toward bending nature to suit our purposes. I don't say this is always bad, but it does seem that an acknowledgement that there might be other laws at work other than just what suits us could be a sane and healthy thing at times.

The ancient Greeks were always pouring libations on the ground; the Wiley Encyclopedia of Ancient History defines a libation as a "ritual outpouring of liquid"--wine or something similar--done to honor a god. I haven't done any laying on of spiritous liquors, but I have been spring cleaning, which is less lyrical but possibly more practical. Instead of spilling wine on the earth, I've been lavishing baking soda, vinegar, and bleach on every surface I can lay my hands on, and dusting, mopping, and running the vacuum like it's going out of style.

Really, I'm just trying to keep ahead of allergens, but it's a ritual cleansing, too, if you like to think of it that way. It's a tip of the hat to the Green Man, a way to let him know that I got his message about nature not being a tame thing (just like Aslan wasn't a tame lion, I guess), that I know I'm just a minute speck in the universe at large (and I'm OK with that, too: in fact, I'm glad of it), but that I do like to be able to breathe through my nose and to smell all those lovely flowers he's been spreading around. Call it a libation with a purpose.

A Tiger and a Unicorn

Just think, only a month ago we were digging out from a foot of snow. Although the calendar said March, the reality outside was deepest winter. And that was our second storm in little more than two weeks. A lot of people said the second one was worse. In my little pocket of the world, we seemed to get the same amount of snow both times, although there was more drifting with the first storm; a car I could see from my living room had snow to the top of its wheel wells and wasn't moved for a week. Driving across the parking lot was akin to sledding on a glacier.

The second snow, though formidable enough to halt travel statewide, ended up melting away like a mere dream of winter in only a few days of sun; it just couldn't hang on like the first one. A week later, it was hard to believe it had even happened, though memories of digging a path for my car with a dustpan as a frosty afternoon turned to purple twilight and my nose turned pink assured me that, yes, I had indeed been there. One week more, a mild, sunny day, and I was driving around with the radio on and the window rolled down, and the world seemed a different place, if only for an afternoon.

After lingering in the borderland of winter's-over-but-it's-not-quite-spring, we had another cold night on Saturday--but the next day, Easter, I saw my first blossoming trees of the season, and a day later there were even more. With the heavy rains of the last few days, the border of the sidewalk next to our building has sprouted some ground cover that almost looks like small shrubs, and the grass, which had been brown and lank except for some green tufts, is suddenly thick and lush, a riot of vegetation.

If March came in like a lion (and it did), April has been tigerish in its own way. We've gone from frozen waste to uproarious jungle, with pollen flying, birds darting, and lightning flashing. If this spring were music, it would be Stravinsky's strident Rite of Spring, not Vivaldi's sweet and chirrupy Four Seasons. The human world may flounder and fumble, but the natural world streams on.

I saw a political headline today: "2015 is all about 2016." I guess I should care, but I'm more excited at the moment by the weeping cherries, crab apples, and redbuds and the prospect of putting my winter things away. Show me a politician as reliable as the return of spring, and I'll show you a green and gold tiger romping in the tall grass with a unicorn. I'm not sure that the first sight isn't much rarer than the second one.

Colors and Memories

We're making the transition around here into fall, and it was really evident today. Yesterday when I walked to the library, a heavy rainfall had made the field behind the sports center as fresh and green as May; the major tell-tale signs of September were a few scattered brown leaves on the sidewalk. But somehow, overnight, the oak tree on my street has let loose a load of acorns, the air is cool and damp, and the sky has turned gray.

When the harvest moon rose a few days ago, it almost seemed too soon for it. We've been having summery weather, including thunderstorms, and the trees and lawns still had the look of July, if not June. The night before it was full, the moon had an evanescent spring appearance, rising pale and ghostly above the rooftops in a sky still full of daylight. Cicadas were shrilling, and the air was muggy. Now, just a few days later, the grocery store has a huge pumpkin display, leaves are falling in greater numbers, and the summer heat is nowhere to be found.

Well, fair enough. The summer days seemed to just melt away, so that it's hard to believe the entire season has come and gone, but fall is often brilliant around here, and change, as they say, is life. Sometimes a dry summer causes drab fall colors, but with all the rain we've had this summer, we may really have something to look forward to as the leaves begin to turn.

I still clearly remember our first fall in Kentucky, after we moved back here from Florida, many years ago. Days of an unbelievably gray, wet dreariness, in stark contrast to the hot, bright light of Florida, alternated with glowing days in which dazzling orange and yellow leaves stood out so sharply against the cloudless blue that it almost hurt your eyes. That's autumn in Kentucky, which can veer from crisp and energetic to funereal and back again many times over.

When I was out walking earlier, acorns crunching underfoot, I had a sudden memory of myself as a first-grader in Florida, coloring in leaves and acorns with those big, fat Crayolas they make for young children, helping to decorate the classroom for fall. I can still see those autumnal browns and oranges, which were largely conceptual for me, since colors didn't change much with the seasons where we lived, practically in the Everglades. We imagined fall (and winter). How nice it would be to be able to see this fall's colors with imaginative beginner's eyes all over again.

After the Storm

Yesterday we had a thunderstorm that, despite its brevity, managed to wreak a maximum amount of havoc in a minimum amount of time. It seemed to happen in the space of only 15 minutes. I was in the coffeehouse when it hit and would nearly have missed it if I hadn't glanced up from my book and seen how extremely Stygian the view had gotten through the front window. It wasn't even 5:30, but it looked like night was falling. It had all happened in a hurry.

Since I was planning to go to a movie, I left the coffeehouse to go home for dinner. The rain had passed over, but I heard thunder off to the east. I moseyed through quiet residential streets, not realizing the storm had done any damage until I got to a stoplight, half a mile from home, which was not working. When I turned left, I found myself stuck in a line of molasses-slow stop-and-go traffic. When I got clear of that, the next stoplight I came to was also on the blink.

When I walked into my building, there were no lights in the hallway, and an alarm was sounding insistently. In my apartment, there was no electricity at all, though I did have phone service. I called to let someone know about the alarm, discovering from our apartment manager that he had no power either. I went back out into the hall, crazily lit by a white emergency light on the exit sign but otherwise dusky, to locate the source of the alarm, which turned out to be a wall panel next to the stairs. The building seemed unfamiliar, transformed into a slantwise, alternative version of itself by the shrilling alarm and altered lighting.

I thought to myself that it was a good thing I was planning to eat leftovers anyway; my pasta salad was still chilled inside the non-functioning refrigerator. In the back of my mind while I ate was a lingering memory of the great power outage of February 2003, which lasted on my street for almost a week and for much longer in other places. I knew this outage would likely be resolved within a few hours but thought it best not to count on the lights being on when I came back home. I was doubly glad I had plans because watching a Jimmy Stewart movie in the familiar environs of the Kentucky Theatre seemed much more appealing than trying to read a book by battery-operated candles with an alarm shrieking in the background.

I took my pink piggy LED flashlight, my umbrella, and my foldable rain cape with me when I left, feeling somewhat like a Girl Scout assailing the wilderness. There were no functioning traffic lights as far as I could tell. Things were moving surprisingly well, if slowly, though I don't think I'd have wanted to be a pedestrian trying to cross the street. I encountered an officer directing traffic at the biggest intersection, but otherwise, it was inch forward, keep your eye on the cars approaching from various directions, inch forward some more, and wait for your chance to go. The slightly chaotic air gave the scene an upside-down quality that might have been more carnival-like if it hadn't also been nerve-wracking.

It wasn't until I reached High Street downtown that I finally found a working stoplight, and then it was as if I had crossed the border from a topsy-turvy country teetering toward lawlessness back into the familiar world of everyday, just by passing through an intersection. The trip had seemed longer than it was, and I was sure I was late, but by the time I found a parking spot, I realized I was right on schedule. It was as if time had slowed down in the place with the power outage, but the clock came right again as soon as I passed out of it.

The crowd was a bit smaller than usual for a summer classics movie, so the rain had no doubt kept some people home, but everything else was as usual in the theatre as we waited for the movie to start. The organ played, the crowd sang "My Old Kentucky Home," the smell of popcorn hung in the air, the movie was introduced, and the lights went down. Up on the screen, Jimmy Stewart's smiling face appeared, and we settled in for an evening of Harvey, which in itself is a comic meditation on the intersection of different worlds--one everyday, and one uncanny. It was rather appropriate, under the circumstances.

My trip home from the movie was uneventful. By the time I got back, the stoplights were working, the power was on, the alarm had been silenced, and we were back to business as usual. It was, I guess, a little reminder of how we are all, always, at the mercy of nature, no matter how secure the trappings of civilized life seem. None of us are bigger than the most fleeting of summer storms. I guess it's good to be reminded of that from time to time.

Nothing to See Here, Except . . .

Things have been quiet around here for the last week or so. Traffic is light, Starbucks has been mostly empty, and there's a feeling that everybody must be out of town on vacation. It's very pleasant. Even the fireflies seem to be off napping somewhere.

Coinciding with that, we've had sort of a summer version of a polar vortex, with a storm front moving in and cooling things down, trailing ragged thunderclouds and pinkish-gold sunsets in its wake. It's amazing how charming a cold spell can be when it happens in the middle of July, dropping temperatures to the 70s, lowering humidity, and still allowing the sun to shine.

A little over a week ago, it was so humid that even at 8:30 at night, walking was like wading slowly through curtains of moisture. I much prefer that to walking through sleet and snow, but it does sap your energy if it goes on long enough. After a week of storm clouds wildly chasing sunshine, and vice versa, we're back to heat and humidity, though I understand we're in for another cooling spell in a day or so.

Among the charms of a summer evening's walk this week, I have spotted: toadstools, like something from a nursery rhyme, right on my street; a cardinal on a treetop silhouetted against the sky; two rabbits sitting together in a field; scampering chipmunks; porches edged with riotous flowers; and a complex sunset of mauve, pink, and orange. Tonight, big, fat cumulus clouds, tinged with apricot from the setting sun, seemed too lazy even to move, as if an artist had painted them on the backdrop of the sky and then went off on tea break, leaving them hanging.

If you looked at the image of July in one of those medieval books of hours, like the Très Riches Heures du Duc Berry, you would see what July looks like around here, minus the sheep and the castle. In fact, there is a street named Kastle near here, and there's a house not far away where (I'm not kidding) a sheep used to graze in the yard, so with a little imagination you can see some overlap. It's a pity the sheep is gone. I never saw it in the summer, but it would have made a lovely Très Rich Hours scene, Kentucky style, to go with all the cardinals, rabbits, hostas, and begonias of our suburban summer.

April, and Time

I've been focusing on a paper I'm writing on libraries as labyrinths, and it's taking a lot of my attention, so the blog is a little late in coming. I've been immersed in the life of Jorge Luis Borges for the last few days, and engrossing as it is, that hasn't stopped me from indulging in my other current preoccupation: keeping a weather eye out for new signs of spring.

Every time I go walking I see more patches of green on the lawns, more tiny flowers springing up; I saw my first daffodils of the season the other day near a coffeehouse I frequent. The buds are almost ready to burst on some of the trees, especially the redbuds, of which there are many in my neighborhood. I finally experienced that March day I was describing a couple of weeks ago, that prototypical day that's balmy and a little damp; it happened last Friday. It's still chilly at night, and though the temperatures have been variable, we are heading into a week of daytime highs in the 60s. Today was sunny and mild, and tomorrow should be the same.

If you want to see Kentucky at its prettiest, you couldn't do better than to arrive in April, though it's difficult to forecast the best time with precision, because many flowering trees seem to depend on warmth to bloom, and that never occurs predictably. Within a week or two, though, Lexington's streets should present a palette of various pink, violet, and white blossoms that will make the memory of winter grays seem a distant imagining.

I'm casting back in my own memory to figure out when the arrival of spring began to take on such significance. Not surprisingly, spring didn't really register when I was a kid in Florida, except to herald the arrival of Easter (the third best holiday in the pantheon). I don't remember having spring fever that much in junior high or high school, either; the chief thing back then was the beginning of summer. One day seemed much like another when I was in school, except for that electricity in the air that announced the approach of June.

The first time I ever fully appreciated how beautiful spring is in Kentucky was my first year in college. The campus has a variety of blooming trees, and though I must have been too engrossed in finals to notice it at first, I remember crossing Rose Street after my final exam in Western Literature From 1660 to the Present and suddenly becoming aware of a near wonderland of tulips and flowering trees. I was surprised that I had been too preoccupied to notice (though I must have had several term papers due in April and was also preparing to go home for the summer). At some point, while I was writing papers for Philosophy class, studying Spanish verbs, and thinking through my interpretation of Wordsworth's poem "Stepping Westward," the campus had transformed itself into a garden of great and delicate beauty. In succeeding years, I came to realize how fleeting that time of beauty is, and to look out for it.

Years of having to deal with ice and snow first thing in the morning before going to work did a great deal to destroy my enjoyment of winter, though I have to say I took those things in stride when I was in school and walked everywhere. One also falls into the habit of complaining, along with everyone else, about the short days and other pitfalls of the cold months. Beyond that, I have noticed in myself a keener awareness overall of the seasons, the holidays, and the rhythms that attach to different times of the year when time seems to move faster or slower. I don't know if this is something that comes with grower older or if it results simply from paying more attention.

The whole business of time has changed as I've gotten older. When I was young, I seemed to be living in an eternal now, probably because I didn't have much past to look back on. Now I'm more solidly situated as to past, present, and future, and of course the responsibilities of adult life require attention to such things as tax deadlines, the scheduling of appointments, and other duties that are time-dependent. I also live in a climate with distinct seasonal changes that constantly draw attention to the calendar. I'd actually like to go back to that eternal now of simply living in the moment, neither looking ahead, anticipating, or looking back, remembering. I wonder sometimes if living in more of a constant climate than the one I'm in would facilitate that, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out.

Until I do, I guess I'll stick with looking forward to the redbuds and anticipating the azaleas. I don't know if it's Señor Borges or memories of life in Florida that have me thinking so much of sunshine and warm breezes . . . maybe it's both. But if I ever do relocate to a place in the sun, I may have to come back here for a couple of weeks out of the year, just for April. (Actually, summer is pretty nice here, too.)

Birth of Spring, Kentucky Style

Yesterday afternoon I took my camera when I went walking. I was looking for early signs of spring and wanted to document any I found. It was a bright, beautiful day, and I'd already noticed tufts of grass poking up in different places, so I knew there'd be other indications. It does seem to me that, like last year, spring is taking its sweet time about getting here. I can remember at least one instance (I'm not making it up) when spring was in full flower by April, weeping cherries, crabapples, and all. The forecast suggests that probably won't happen this year, but at least we're on the downhill side of March.

It felt so good to be out on a mild, sunny day that at first I was taking pictures of almost everything -- trees, flagpoles, buildings -- out of sheer good spirits. I saw a group of birds in a field and tried to photograph them, but they wouldn't sit still for it, so I had to give that up. On a residential street, I took pictures of clumps of new grass at the foot of a tree and the first flowers I've spotted this season, which turned out to be crocuses. Down the lane, I photographed branches almost ready to burst into bloom under a radiant blue sky. Seriously, I was

having thoughts about hopscotch; it was 

an e.e. cummings, little lame balloonman sort of day. 

This afternoon, I went for the same walk without my camera. It was a little warmer today, if breezier; more grass seems to have sprouted up over night, and I saw more crocuses. Someone was having a party on his back lawn, with croquet, a food table, and the works. A party for early spring! I haven't seen anyone playing outside since sometime last fall. It made me nostalgic for my grandmother's back yard, though that was really more of a June-July-August sort of thing. 

Uh oh, I'm getting ahead of myself! It's not even April yet. We haven't even seen any redbuds, and we don't want to miss that. But a polar vortex will do that to you.

How's it looking in your neck of the woods?

Sky by Maxfield Parrish

The shorter days are nothing to get excited about, but still . . . these September evenings are beautiful. I think the last of the fireflies are gone, and the sound of the crickets is fading day by day. It's sad to see the summer go, but the feeling of change in the air is invigorating. The cool air in the evenings is pleasant, and there's always some drama playing out in the sky.

The other night, it was the nearly full moon, rising ghostlike in the still bright sky of early evening, while the fiery sun went down in the opposite direction. The moon kept getting caught in wisps of clouds as it rose, which only accentuated its beauty. I didn't see the harvest moon last night, and when I went out for my walk this evening I was too early for it. I caught a glimpse of the moon a while ago from my window, and it's already high overhead, framed by the branches of a tree. If I stepped outside, I could see Orion, too.

I've noticed a flock of geese flying about restlessly, as if they're unsure whether to go south or not. When I saw them tonight, they were not flying south but seemed to be heading for the Arboretum on some unknown errand. They can seem a little ungainly on the ground, but in the air, they're very graceful. No doubt they'll be on their way soon to what I hope is a warm wintering spot.

The sunsets have been lovely, especially with the evening star shining so clearly in the quiet part of the sky above the glowing color. More than once this week, I've looked at the western sky at sunset and thought that it looked like a painting by Maxfield Parrish. You know, all those towering, billowing clouds and saturated hues of orange and purple. There is something mythic about these dramatic skies ushering autumn in. You almost expect to see goddesses descending.

A low-flying cloud is gray and cold if you pass through it, and we know the surface of the moon is a silent, cold place (when the sunlight doesn't hit it). A goose waddles while walking, and even Venus would appear very different if we were closer to her. Yet throw all of these onto the backdrop of the sky, like a canvas, and they take on grace and mystery. The perspective is everything.

A Path, a Compass, a Map

I guess it isn't surprising how often I end up writing about walking, since I do a lot of walking. It's even sort of a professional interest, because of labyrinths. But I read a book this week that doesn't seem to be about either labyrinths or walking, in the everyday sense of walking. I meant to read Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail last year, when it came out, but I got sidetracked. It's probably just as well, since it means more to me now than it would have a year ago.

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and the events of an actual life a thousand times more compelling than the best-crafted novel ever written. Such is Wild, a memoir of a woman's solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, undertaken in sort of a desperate, intuitive belief that something good would come out of it. As Miss Strayed tells it, she was in a Midwestern outdoor store buying a shovel when she picked up a guidebook for walkers of the PCT. She glanced at the book, then put it back, but something about the cover image of mountains and sky spoke to her mysteriously, and while driving to her home in Minneapolis, she was captured by the idea of hiking the trail herself.

It was a somewhat unexpected decision for someone who had never gone backpacking. But at the age of 26, battered by the loss of her mother to cancer, the breakup of her family, a marriage that had come unglued, an unexpected pregnancy, and a mounting sense of turmoil and emptiness, Strayed undertook the journey in a bid to find answers or least have a chance to think things through. As frequently happens, the reality was very different than what she had imagined.

As a novice hiker, Strayed had little idea of how to properly pack and ended up carrying a load that felt like "a Volkswagen Beetle" on her back. Men she met on the trail had trouble even picking up her pack, much less understanding how she managed to walk with it. Her hiking boots blistered her feet and rubbed them raw, a problem that persisted throughout the trip. She had little money, and despite the carefully chosen protein bars and dehydrated food, was always hungry. She learned to use a compass along the way, crossed rockslides and ice fields, edged around rattlesnakes, encountered bears, mastered the intricacies of a wayward water purifier, slept alone in a tent, worried about mountain lions, and occasionally sang to herself.

She had imagined walking along in soothing solitude, breathing in deeply and letting the beauty of the passing scenery heal the broken places. What actually happened was that pushing through the difficulties -- the skin lacerations, the pain, the hunger and thirst, the fears, the dangers, and the mistakes -- healed her. She discovered that she could stand on her own two feet by continuing to put one in front of the other, and the beauty of the wilderness, experienced at unexpected moments in bursts of clarity, was that much sweeter for being attained so dearly.

There are many ways to interpret the story. In one way, it's a tale about learning to mother (and father) oneself. It's also a hero's journey, one that ends with the book itself, the author's "boon" to the rest of us. While it might not be apparent, the PCT, though linear on a map, is experienced as a maze in which choices must often be made. No two hikers ever experience the trail the same way. As Miss Strayed herself seems to invoke Dante early on when she speaks of feeling lost in the woods of her life, I have to tell you that I thought of The Divine Comedy often while reading this story. Like Dante the pilgrim, Miss Strayed found that, paradoxically, the only way out of the woods was the long way, the via dolorosa, through the Inferno.

The author is candid about her struggles and shortcomings and the naivete with which she began her journey. It's borne in upon the reader that it was sheer determination (and luck) that saw her through. There was every possibility for things to end in disaster. Still, events demonstrate that her intuition to undertake a difficult task to find her measure was a good one. I'm tempted to report that, like Ginger Rogers, Miss Strayed did everything a man could do, except backwards and in heels, but that's not really true, except that it is, sort of. Unlike Dante, she didn't have a Virgil constantly beside her in the tough bits, unless you count the guidebooks she carried. She found mentors along the way, but it was up to her to separate the wheat from the chaff and decide for herself what kind of trip it would be.

I doubt that I would ever hike the PCT on my own, but I recognize the impulse that led the author to do it, and I admire it. There are some things you just have to figure out for yourself. I started the book with tears at the descriptions of Miss Strayed's early sorrows and losses and ended it with tears of a different kind, and that's never a bad way to end a story.

Wabi-Sabi World

According to T.S. Eliot, April is the cruelest month, but I don't believe it. If anything, I would describe it as beautiful, delicate, but slightly wimpy. When I was out walking the other day, there was something about the blue sky, the puffy clouds, and the birds everywhere that reminded me of a children's book illustration: it had a simple innocence almost too beautiful to be real.

April has the tulips and the redbuds and the beginning of the dogwoods but is prone to cool spells. Not all of the trees are fully leafed yet, so there's an unfinished quality to things. May brings in the azaleas, the lush green of summer, and the probability of heat. It's the culmination of spring and the introduction to summer, trailing fireflies, Derby parties, and Memorial Day cookouts in its wake. If early April marks the return of Persephone, May is her coming of age party.

On the other hand, May lacks the spectacular display of color that heralds the first part of spring. It's a bit more monochromatic, with green being the predominant note. The soft pinks, purples, blues, and yellows of April are only visible for an instant, it seems, before they melt away in the sun: you've got to enjoy them (quick!) while you can.

I am thinking of a favorite quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again." While it's natural to have favorite times of the year, a discerning eye finds something worthy in each passing moment. After all, it can't always be summer. Nature, time, and human beings are always in the process of becoming something they were not a moment ago.

Someone loaned me a book on wabi-sabi once, and I was struck by its message of beauty in imperfection. This philosophy holds that things are always either taking on form or dissolving it and that no part of the process is really superior to any other part. Wabi-sabi is an Eastern aesthetic, and I'm not sure that our culture embraces it to the same extent as the Japanese do. We tend to admire the new and the youthful, and that may be because our society itself is relatively young. It's an imbalance, but an understandable one.

I guess true equanimity would find equal amounts of loveliness in every month, every day, and every hour, and there are times when it's possible to know this. However, complete equanimity is itself an impossibility for most if not all of us. Like the seasons, we wax and wane, and I think it's probably best to accept the changing coloration of our moods and thoughts. We are constantly in flux. Who's to say that a flash of anger or a sorrowful mood is any less beautiful or right than a moment of incandescent happiness? We are products of nature and have our own winter storms, Indian summers, and cloudless afternoons. It's the contrast of shadow and light that lends depth to things.

In Praise of Winter

Winter has arrived, in all its gray dampness and icy chill. Not only is it winter, but it's Kentucky winter, which gives it that je nais se quoi I-only-went-to-the-store-how-did-I-end-up-in-Lapland flavor. It's been pretty mild, with just a little snow and no extreme temperatures. In fact, I went out for a walk last week on a day of unexpected sun and met several joggers in T-shirts and shorts.

It's common around here to see people in summer attire at the first hint of warmth. Right after a really cold spell, I've seen college students dressed for Key West when the thermometer was still in the 30s. In general, I don't think Kentuckians are a winter-loving crowd, but they do tend toward optimism in their forecasting and will celebrate their faith in summer's return at the barest sign of a singing bird or a patch of blue between clouds. It probably has a playful whiff of sympathetic magic about it: If I put on my shorts, the sun is bound to come out.

I just finished reading a book about an Appalachian winter with very unusual weather, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior. At the heart of the novel lies a natural phenomenon that, while breathtakingly beautiful, turns out to be a harbinger of environmental crisis. The scientists in the book are well aware of this and unable to see what's happening in a positive light, but the inhabitants of the area respond more to the beauty and poetry of what seems to them a miracle. The main character encompasses both views, and I liked her for holding on to an appreciation of the radiance in nature in the midst of a very discouraging crisis.

That inspires me to think of all the things that are beautiful about winter, which, though not as easy to like as summer, has its moments. For one thing, a bright color stands out at this time of year with unearthly clarity -- take those red winterberries against a bare branch, for example. When you visit the Arboretum in winter, that red pop in the middle of so much drabness is enough to make your jaw drop. The leafless trees have their own kind of beauty, especially standing up against a blue sky. You see their structure and shape and really understand that they only reveal their whole selves without their leaves.

Snow is beautiful, especially when it falls slowly in huge feathery flakes, covers everything to the depth of several inches, and transforms the old world into a new country. Sadly, it's really hard to enjoy this if you have to worry about getting to work, as cars and snow do not mix well. But if you have the luxury of watching from a cozy room, or of walking through a snowfall, with no urgent errand, it can be wonderful. Best of all are the days when the sun comes out over a snowy landscape, finding the diamond dust and making it sparkle.

An ice storm can be stunning, transforming trees, bushes, fences, and wire into sculptures of glass. Even in the middle of the worst ice storm, with power out and branches falling dangerously all around, it's hard not to see how a simple coating of ice changes an ordinary street into something fabulously unfamiliar, as if you've stepped through the looking glass into an alien world. There's also such a thing as a frozen fog, which once seen is never forgotten. Imagine a cloud in stop-motion, hanging in the air as if painted there, the very ice crystals glued into place all around you. Sleeping Beauty's castle could not be more still.

And, of course, there are the winter stars, which seem to shine fiercely on clear winter nights. I have a memory of being outdoors in my hometown one night when I was probably 12 years old, not an especially happy time, but one that stands out for the beauty of a particular night sky. It was January or February, and my siblings and I were out in the neighborhood for some errand. I remember looking up at the sky over the rooftops and trees of our town, seeing how full of stars it was and how brilliantly they were shining, somehow wondrous and intimate at the same time, like an illustration for a fairy tale.

That night, I couldn't have picked out Orion, my favorite constellation, but now I often look for it on clear nights. It caught me by surprise years ago when I was taking an early morning flight; once airborne, I happened to look out the window and see it striding boldly across the December sky. It instantly became an emblem of courage for me (I'm afraid Orion doesn't always come across well in myth, but it's the image I'm talking about, not the stories). It still inspires me.

So, yes, winter does have its advantages. When you factor in a fireside, hot chocolate, Christmas lights, and the smell of woodsmoke, you find that the beauties of winter may be subtle but are not non-existent. Like the quietly melodic Winter Solstice CD I sometimes listen to, winter's beauties are conducive to introspection, reflection, and meditation on small things.