Signs of Spring

Every year at this time, I engage in a single-minded quest for signs of spring. In my memories of childhood on Colorado's Eastern Slope, March was a month of tulips and daffodils and wet, heavy snows, perfect for building snowmen and quick to melt. And while I've learned not to expect flowers during this month in Maine, that doesn't stop my from grasping at any indication that no, winter will not last forever.

While the progression from winter to summer has not been as linear as implied in the above photos, taken from the same spot on my near-daily walks along our trail in the woods, there have been a few bright beacons of spring's arrival at our homestead:

• On March 11th bluebirds started checking out the real estate in our nest boxes.
• Barred owls started hooting March 12th.
• Turkey vultures and woodcocks arrived March 18th.
• We passed the equinox March 20th.
• On March 23rd Canada geese flew by for the first time and robins arrived in droves.
• A flock of red-winged blackbirds flew over on March 24th.
• I heard a spring peeper calling in our swamp March 26th (a day after Cu said he also heard one).
• I saw a tiny orange butterfly on March 27th (it fluttered away over our neighbors' huge field and I couldn't track it down to see what it was).

It has also snowed at least seven times this month, the annual April Fools' Day snowstorm is coming tonight, right on schedule, so we're not completely out of the woods yet, and the month got confused and decided to go out like a lion, with gale-force winds yesterday and temps not much above freezing. But the amount of snow and ice I tramp through or slip and slide over on my daily woods walk decreases every day, and each new snow lasts only a few hours (putting us in "poor man's fertilizer" territory, I suppose, another sign of spring).

And tomorrow April begins, a month associated in my mind with the color yellow--daffodils again, plus the warm light of an ever-stronger sun--with lots of spring energy for new projects, that turning-inward feeling of winter beginning to reverse into an outward expression of life, like the sap is rising from my roots and preparing to feed an unfurling of bright, new leaves.

A version of this post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."

Boring But Not Bored

 At the beginning of the year I started a 5-year journal, with about one-by-three inches of space in which to recount each day of the year, year after year. When I get to the end of each day and jot down the events--read a little, wrote a little, worked a little (I have a freelance project going on now, which makes me feel more at home now in the capitalist system in which when people ask, "What have you been up to?" they usually mean, "What are you doing to move money around?"), made a little art, walked the trail, watched the birds, cooked dinner, tidied the house, maybe knitted a bit or grocery shopped or talked to someone on the phone--I think something along the lines of "Wow, my life is really boring." Only the thing is, I don't *feel* bored (although I did go through a restless period last weekend, wherein I felt like I need a big project to work on, something physical and not reading-writing-art related, like building a shed or remodeling a bathroom; luckily I did not act on this impulse, and the mood, which I diagnosed as spring fever, eventually passed).

February can be a hard month, with the first halfway between the solstice and the equinox, a good eight to twelve weeks until spring in my neck of the woods, no matter what the groundhog says. Though the days are perceptibly longer and the quality of light more golden, we started the month with the coldest weather of the year (-14.4 on 2/4) and we're wrapping it up in a similar vein (-0.8 this morning). The freelance job I'm doing is on a heavy topic and many of the books I've read this month have been heavy as well, and I've had to antidote it all with a heavy dose of rewatching ridiculous television shows every night. 

For all these reasons, February is the month I most feel like hibernating, by which I mean loading up the wood stove and reading a little, writing a little, making a little art, knitting a bit, walking the trail, watching the birds, fixing a pot of tea in the afternoon. Maybe burrowing is more what I mean than hibernating--cozying down into a pleasant waking doze beneath a comforter with a plate of cheese nearby: torpor, dormancy, senescence. In other words, exactly what I've been doing.

Which isn't to say I've done nothing at all this month--at the beginning of the month I caught up with a few friends at a party and led a full-moon hike at a nearby nature center; yesterday Z and I met up with M for a day of cross-country skiing on some gorgeous groomed trails, and the snow was so perfect I decided that perhaps, rather than hanging up my cross-country skis for good (which I'd been considering, because I always feel so resistant to going), I'd instead trade them in on a pair that isn't missing the back half of one of the bindings and the top half of of one of the pole handles and most of the pole baskets, along with some boots that are warm and comfortable and don't raise blisters. In between I had a book talk and met a good friend for lunch and had countless appointments. And now that I'm nearing the end of the month, I think I'm ready to wake up a bit, to poke my head out of my hole and see if I see my shadow. It is, perhaps, another symptom of spring fever.

Mini Adventures and Nostalgia

I'm trying very hard not to start this email with a banal statement like, "Can you believe it's already the end of October?" Because I can't believe it. Where did the month go?

I've been trying to buckle down and focus on my new book project this month, but it's at that big, unwieldy stage where it's hard to see where I'm going or how I'll get there. So instead I seek distractions. One of those distractions is going on mini adventures--a trip to the beach with friends, a hike on a nearby trail. I read in Laura Vandercam's newsletter the recommendation to have one big and one small adventure each week. I can't remember why she recommends this, but for me adventures serve several purposes: getting me out of the house and out of my head, exercise, time with other people, and a teeny bit of excitement. C and I have been watching the TV show M*A*S*H lately, and during the opening credits, I feel this little thrill in my chest when the helicopters come in and the medics run up the hill. I want that, I think, although I definitely do not want to either be in the army or work in the medical field, but I want that surge of excitement, that urgency, that sense that there's something so important that I need to run to get to it (is that why people take up jogging?). While there's not, and not likely to be, anything of such urgency in my life, I can at least create a little excitement by getting out on mini adventures.

Today my method of distracting myself was less exciting even than a hike--I spent the morning reading my old zines. Back before I wrote e-newsletters and blogs and books, I created a print zine--producing 13 issues over seven years. In the back of every issue I included a roundup of amusing things my kids said (which were no doubt more amusing to me than they were to my subscribers). I pulled the zines out because I remembered that one of the boys had invented a new word for one type of rain. (I swear this was related to an essay I was toying around with.) I found the quote, which had come from from E: "It was not dribbling, pouring regular rain, or sprinkling. Might have been twizzling." But I couldn't stop there and started reading all their adorable quotes and then looking at my hilarious cartoons, and then reading bits and pieces and whole essays, and pretty soon, an hour and a half had evaporated.

The funny thing is, I don't feel like the same person who wrote about trying to get three little kids to bed or deciphering toddler twin talk. Did any of that actually happen? To me? If I didn't have a written record, I wouldn't believe it. And if I didn't have a photographic record, I'd hardly believe the boys were ever so small. Last week I got the prints of E and Z's senior photos and, for the last time, did the annual tradition of taking apart the picture frames and going through all of the photos stacked behind the current one, from preschool to now, laughing at the various stages (Jack-o-lantern teeth, tough-guy third grader, suit-n-tie sixth grader, crossed eyes, crazy hair, the year I forgot about picture day and they were dressed in rags with bird-nest hair). Although there's a glimmer of familiarity between those earlier photos and now, it's hard to believe they're the same people as these big, tall men I now live with.

I've heard that all the cells in a person's body are regenerated every seven years, so in a way they really aren't the same people, and neither am I. But if that's so where have those other people, the ones we were then, gone? 

A version of this post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."

Autumn Bluebirds

 

I tend to get morbid in fall. I realize that's not a particularly original reaction to the season that brings us Halloween, Day of the Dead, and innumerable religious holidays that center around remembering those who have cast off their mortal coil. And then there's the whole leaves falling from trees, plants turning brown and shriveling up, cold wind blowing in from the north business.  This year it hit me harder and more suddenly than usual. Perhaps because it's the last fall in which I will watch my children head back to school, or because it's the last fall when I'll still be less than half a century old. Every year fall is a reminder of passing time and aging bodies, but this year that reminder has a more ominous ring to it. A couple of weeks ago, I went out to the garden to gather tomatoes for dinner and found, in place of the laden beds of fruits and vegetables that had threatened to overwhelm our kitchen and our stomachs for more than two months, there remained only a handful of overripe cherry tomatoes clinging to blackened, withered vines. We hadn't even had frost yet. The only way I could describe how I felt was betrayed, as if July's and August's abundance had constituted a contract, a promise of endless summer. Fall comes every year, yet somehow, this year, I thought it might pass me by. And then COVID struck our house, knocking back three out of four of us for a week. Another betrayal--by our bodies, by the public health system, by society. Early this week, when I'd regained enough energy to make the trek to the mailbox, I paused at the spot where our driveway takes a hard left turn at our neighbor's field. He hadn't mown this summer, instead letting it grow into waves of tall grass that turned tawny in late summer, when a farmer from down the road came and cut and bundled it into hay bales. Fresh grass grew in since then and, despite the drought, stretched in a mat of bright summer green. Another promise. The leaves in the trees along the edge of the woods had begun to change, however, golden and orange and russet. Darting between the grass and the trees was a small flock of bluebirds, six, seven, eight of them, their cerulean wings bright against the greens and coppers.  A few of them alighted on the next box we put up next to the field a couple of years ago. Perhaps they were part of the brood that had grown up there this summer, or part of the three broods from last summer. Perhaps they were travelers checking out the real estate for next year. It's hard to feel melancholy while watching bluebirds. There's a reason they're the bird of happiness--their bright feathers, their lithe flight, their gentle song. In visiting the nest box, the green field, the golden trees it was as if they were saying, Yes, summer is over, and spring a long way off. But we'll be back next year, and so will the sun. A version of this post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."

Flash Friday ~ January Twilight

It is what I call the blue time of year--even on a gray day the clouds are tinged with blue, as are the snow and the trees. Yesterday the wind blew so hard the tree trunks made animal sounds where they rubbed together. Today is so calm I can hear the traffic on the next road over, a dog barking across the river, the shifting of a board back by the garage. My ice spikes crack and crunch on the glazed driveway, each step a pistol shot. A faint breeze sends the leaves of a young beech shivering, a dry, papery, gothic sound. Otherwise the world is still. The birds and squirrels away to their roosts and nests, the predators awaiting dusk. 

The air is cold. Not the bitter, biting cold of earlier in the week, but a damp insipid cold that makes inroads at cuffs and seams, anywhere layers of fabric overlap. Even on a short walk my mind flickers to other places--conversations from earlier in the day, vegetables that need chopping, the evening's plans. I try to yank it back to the blue world. The here and now. 

Back at the house, I see the Christmas tree propped against the doorframe and remember that today is January 13, St. Knut's Day, the day Scandinavians take down their trees. I believe they burn theirs in Sweden, but I can't stand the thought and instead we return ours to the woods it came from, where it can be a refuge to small birds and animals. 

I lift the tree by its slender trunk and set off through the woods, off piste. In the chiaroscuro of a winter's evening--white snow, black twigs and branches--it's easy to find a pathway among the trees to the field below, where the dried stems of tall white aster stand chest high. I find a trail across the field, the one the boys use to get to their skating rink on the river, the snow trampled and refrozen in icy footprints, and I follow its winding route through the trees. I feel rushed by the lateness of the hour. It will be dark soon, I have places I need to go this evening, things I need to get ready. So I don't take the tree all the way to the river bank, but set it in the snow beside the trail, thank it again for bringing warmth and light and green into our house in the darkest part of the winter, and turn toward home.

My hands are sticky with balsam sap, and I bring them to my face, breathe deeply the scent of solstice and Christmas, family and winter, life and light.

This is a new series, where I plan to write a flash piece (nonfiction for now, but maybe fiction later) every Friday of 2022.

Autumn Adjustment

There's a hint of fall in the air—chilly nights (and mornings) and crickets singing like there's no tomorrow (which, for crickets, is kind of true). It's a tough time of year, when everyone else is rhapsodizing about wool sweaters and wood stoves and I'm on my knees, begging for just one more day—or week or month—of 80 degree weather.


A little over two weeks ago, on a Tuesday morning, C and I dropped E and Z off at their new bus stop for their first day of high school, then kept on driving till we got to M's college. There we moved his bike, his guitars, his crate of Adidas, his duffels of clothes, his extra long sheets, his hot pot and clip-on fan and lights and, of course, him into his tiny new dorm room. We spent the day on campus doing all the things they had arranged for move-in day, then we left M to his new friends and neighbors for a week of orientation, picked E and Z up from cross-country practice, and came home.

I was a little anxious for the twins, because the first day of high school is an anxious time, but I was just happy dropping M off, excited for all the opportunities that await him, and, to tell the truth, a little jealous that they didn't offer those opportunities when I was in college. But over the next few days, when I'd think about needing to turn on the porch light for M, or when I'd drive in the driveway and look for a third car, I slowly came to the realization that he's not just at school or drama practice or work or a housesitting job, he's really and truly gone, and in the quiet left behind by his absence, I missed him. 

It's hard, when someone is a part of your everyday existence for 18+ years, for him to be gone all of sudden (even though it's not really all that sudden, but rather a slow, slow peeling away).
Fortunately, he's just around the corner, and he joined me for his brothers' cross-country meet last week, then we all went out to dinner. We got to hear all about his new adventures and E and Z got to tell him about their new adventures. Then we dropped him off at his dorm and drove home through the early dark of an autumn evening to our quiet, quiet house.

This post went out last week to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. You can subscribe here.

Winter Roundup

The calendar says spring, but outside my window now, snowflakes are sifting gently but steadily down from the sky.

It's been a strange winter, with March making up for the almost snow-free February with interest.

C put the skis and snowshoes away in the barn loft a month ago, and at least two feet of the white stuff has fallen since then.


Spring in Maine may be a state of mind and not an actual season, but the birds have gotten into the spirit—woodpeckers drumming, chickadees whistling "hey sweetie," and the little tufted titmouse tweeting "chiva-chiva."

Meanwhile, I've been sequestered indoors, doggedly working toward my self-imposed deadline of completing my book by April 1.

I don't think I'll make it, but I'll be close. Closer if I could just learn to say "no" to all kinds of things that sound a lot more fun than reading tomes on environmental law and geology.

While I have avoided most other writing projects—including this blog—I haven't only been writing the book.

There's been skiing and snowshoeing and hiking and walking up and down the muddy driveway, depending on the weather.



And twice I've gone "up north" on birding expeditions to see crossbills, which are pretty much like coming across parrots in the wilds of Maine. So beautiful (and they like to hang out on the road shoulders, nibbling gravel).

The boys have had A LOT of snow days, like double-digits snow days.

Sometimes I'm fun snow day mom, who plays games and watches movies and makes treats like snow ice cream or German apple pan cake.


Sometimes I'm "go outside and then read quietly in your room while I get some work done. No Minecraft" mom.




It is, no doubt, premature to call this a winter "roundup" while snow drifts around outside my window—kind of like C putting away the winter gear in mid-February. Stay tuned for "winter addendum."

Season's Ending

We celebrated the last day of Christmas Tuesday, with candles and carols and the last page of our book. The boys woke up to small gifts from the Three Kings in their shoes Wednesday morning.

The tree will come down this weekend, and the lights and the gnomes and the candles. We'll sweep away the needles and the last lingering scraps of wrapping paper, the stray ornament hooks. We'll look out from our clean house, down the long barrel of winter, with no big holidays or celebrations on the horizon. It's tempting, this time of year to go into a funk, imagining that the cold days might, this time, just hang around straight through to another winter. I've got a big stack of books ready to read by the fire, plus a stack writing projects, a whole list of goals, habits, and resolutions. I've got nature-study plans (bark! lichens! tracks!) and I'm thinking about improving my cross-country ski skills (if it actually snows) and maybe going on an overnight ski trip. Like a lot of things in life, winter is much more unpleasant in the anticipation than in the actuality, so I'm trying to look forward the positive side of it, focus on the things I enjoy, and not worry about the cold and the dark and the clouds.

What are you looking forward to this winter? 

Embracing Fall

Cold weather always comes as a shock to me.

The first frost came while we were out of town, so it was somehow less personal.

But when we got home and the mornings continued to be chilly, I started to panic--

Winter is coming!!!

While everyone else was complaining about the heat in September, I was luxuriating in the feel of warm air on bare skin (and feet!).

And I was told on more than one occasion by more than one person that I live in the wrong state.

Yeah, I know.

To me, summer is youth and winter is old age and fall is that time, when you're, oh, say, 42, and you realize that you are going to get old and die and will never be summer again!!

But since there's nothing I can do about either situation--short of plastic surgery and a condo in the Bahamas--I'm trying to focus very hard on the compensations:

Blue skies, dry air, golden leaves.

The boys picked a bushel of wild apples and a friend and I made gallons of apple butter (yes, I broke briefly out of my anti-domesticity frame of mind).

I haven't quite figured out what the compensations for that other thing are, but I'm working on embracing fall.

Weekend Things ~ Spring Edition

Spring is unfolding incrementally around here.

I appreciate the slow reveal.

When the seasons move too fast, I get anxious that I am missing something, not appreciating the moment as I worry that it will be over too soon (sound familiar, motherhood?).

That time will come soon enough.

But now the background is stark enough that each bud opening, each catkin unfurling, each flower blossoming makes an impression.

Last week we had rain-tease all week and morning temps still in the 30s.

Z won a bet with M that there would still be snow around on May 1.

It was just a little mound of crystals, pushed by the plow and buried under a blanket of pine needles, but it was still snow.

Yesterday I went to work in a down coat and came home in glorious 82 degree heat.

Sunday I sat by our pond and watched painted turtles sun, warblers flit through the trees, an enormous snapping turtle stumble-crash over the bank and into the water, its grapefruit-sized head snorkeling to the surface every few minutes. I think I could sit like that for the whole month of May, watching spring unfurl one leaf, one petal, one frog, one bird, one turtle at a time.

Weekend Things ~ Spring!

I'm eyeballs deep in a project and I can't concentrate on anything else until I get it done, but I wanted to pop in here to let you know--spring finally came! Like the flip of a switch, the weather went from 20s/40s last week to the high 60s over the weekend. I went for a walk wearing a sweater--no coat!

As you can see, there was still quite a bit of snow in the woods Sunday, but it's been melting fast and furious all week. And the river has opened up (but for the occasional ice flow).

And even the piles of snow in front of the house have shrunk (sort of).

And C finally made his maple syrup--his first boil happened later than his last boil for the last two years, and it only lasted three days (which is fine with me), but yielded five gallons of syrup.

Our gravel pit pond is still frozen over (it doesn't get much snow), but I heard a peeper and a wood frog tonight in the nearby wetlands.

It's official--spring's here!

Easter Weekend

Usually I like to go hiking on Easter, but between the weather and familial obligations, we had to make some adjustments and compromises this year.

Saturday we dyed eggs.

And I made Easter dinner my way--

Fresh and green and lemony (Spanikopita, Greek potatoes, asparagus, and a lemon-blueberry yogurt cheese pie)

We "painted" snow with leftover Easter egg dye.

Sunday morning, we had an egg hunt...

...in the wee hours before there's enough light for proper photography.

And we ate fruit parfaits, Easter eggs, and lots of candy for breakfast.

In a sunny patch between snow squalls, we stomped down to the river to see how the breakup of ice is coming along.

Then later headed to a late lunch/early dinner (linner) at the in-laws that left us full and free for a lazy afternoon.

Hope you had a great weekend!