November 2008

On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in relief against the sky--gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak--Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless! But his horror was still more increased, on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle.
--Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

 There were few surprises more delightful when we moved up on the hill, than discovering the wooded path that runs along the northeastern boundary of the borough. While the whole neighborhood is blessed with abundant tree cover, there’s something almost magical about the small woods that the trail bisects. Who would guess that downtown is just minutes away when walking along—leaves crunching underfoot, birds flitting overhead, and dogs barking in the distance.

We explored all of the streets of Rosslyn Farms on foot that first week or so after moving in, spending an hour or more each evening marveling at the wide variety of architectural styles represented in our new community, and trying to figure out what species all the different trees were. Years later, not that much has changed: we still spend a lot of evenings out among our neighbors and their dogs, making the circuit up Priscilla, down King’s Highway, then looping around Terrace & Edgecliff (daring to risk the RFPD and go the wrong direction, to get the cardio benefit of the long, steady grade).

But it was the woods and the trail that captured our attention, and imagination, from the start. Even a narrow sliver of forest can be enough to set the mind wandering. In its pre-renovation days, it was easy to imagine the house at the end of Club Road as an English manor, and the trail leading off to some Oxfordshire village with a stone-steepled church as its centerpiece. Another time, when the dog inadvertently flushed out several wild turkeys, it was an unspoiled trail through Shawnee or Iroquois territory (although all but the most modern-day Indians would have shaken their heads at how startled the humans and dog were, and how nonchalant the turkeys). At other times, walking the path for exercise and fun, I imagine what travel must have been like in Europe and elsewhere before paved roads and automobiles—lovely at times, but also muddy, and dangerous, and exhausting.

Most times, though, the trail is the one that Ichabod Crane travels from the Van Tassels’ party back to Sleepy Hollow on that long-ago Hudson Valley night. It is almost inevitable that the image of the Headless Horseman appears in my mind’s eye each time we walk the path through the woods, especially during these autumn days, with the changing leaves, the low-slanting sunbeams, and the chilly nip in the air.

There’s something about the tall, spindly, almost skeletal trees perched precariously on the hillside, and the way the pathway weaves through them that lends itself to flights of fancy. How easy to imagine a flaming pumpkin or some midnight-colored stallion careening down the path toward us. Even in the early morning sunshine of a November Saturday, I sometimes think I hear quick hoof-beats just around the bend. It must be the wind—I mean, the Headless Horseman is just an old folktale. Right?

No matter whether English lane, Indian trail, or nightmare alley, I’m so glad to have the path and woods as part of our community. The trees and wildflowers that grow there are wonderful ways to watch the seasons spin past—lovely in their autumnal hues, welcomed harbingers of warm weather in the spring. The squirrels and rabbits, and even the turkeys, are good companions to have on a stroll. And the fact that the path leads to wonderful neighbors on either end seems to me to make it just about as perfect as perfect can be.

October 2008

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
--George Eliot, English novelist, 1819–1880

The birds do seem to find autumn delicious, up on the hill. For days they’ve been feasting on the lozenge-shaped red fruit that cover the tea viburnums (Viburnum setigerum) along the fence at the top of the property, as well as the metallic purple beautyberries (Callicarpa dichotoma) by the front gate. They’ve already exhausted the supply of bright blue berries clustered all over D’s ‘Autumn Jazz’ and ‘Blue Muffin’ viburnums (sp: dentatum) down near the wall. A rainbow banquet for them, as they prepare for the long, dark months ahead.

But we’re happy to share the berries; after all, we’re doing our feasting on the gorgeous colors of the viburnums’ foliage, not on their tart, mushy fruit. The crimsons and golds, the tangerine-oranges and coppery-browns that the leaves wear are much more palatable than the berries. Earlier in the season, we planted a Persian Witchhazel (Parrotia persica) to draw attention away from the barn, and true to form, it is like a stationary roman candle, with the whole color spectrum represented on one tree. Barn? What barn?

In a few weeks, we’re headed to the wine country on a long-anticipated West Coast vacation. In talking with the owner of the cottage we’re renting along the Russian River, she mentioned that we’d be there for the “coloring of the vines.” We’re not serious wine drinkers, and have never been to Napa or Sonoma before, so I had to ask what she meant. “Oh, just that the grape vines will be full of fall colors,” she replied. I’d never thought about it before, but certainly our vines, such as Virginia Creeper and Boston Ivy, and even some clematis, put on a late-season show with colorful leaves. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that grape vines do the same thing.

Since we’re not tied to the academic calendar, we tend to plan our vacations for autumn, after kids are back to school and prices have fallen from their peak-season highs. While it tends to be quieter and less expensive, we do regret missing two weeks of some of western Pennsylvania’s finest weather. Plus, Rosslyn Farms and the surrounding hills (or at least those that have escaped the incessant bulldozers) are at their loveliest this month. In the days leading up to our departure, we struggle with the idea that we should close up the garden and put away the outdoor furniture when the days are still so sunny and warm. But on those years where we’ve left the gardening chores go till after vacation, we’ve been rewarded with cold rain and biting winds upon our return. Better to lug lounge chairs, up-end spent tomato plants, and scrub terra cotta pots under a shining October sun, than in the depressing drizzle of a cold November afternoon.

So, we’ll enjoy these delicious autumn days in Rosslyn Farms, then—like Eliot’s birds—fly away and enjoy them all over again in California. We’ll revel in the colorful landscape below us as the plane climbs up into the sky on its way westward; in two weeks’ time, we’ll marvel that the hills we see as we make our descent back into Pittsburgh have already become so barren and brown—like a magician’s trick. Still, regardless of the lack of colorful foliage to greet us upon our homecoming, at the end it’s always good to return to roost in our nest, up on the hill.

September 2008

Now all the heav'nly splendor
Breaks forth in starlight tender
From myriad worlds unknown;
And man, the marvel seeing,
Forgets his selfish being,
For joy of beauty not his own.
--Paul Gerhardt, 1607-1676

It’s a bittersweet time of year, up on the hill. Summer is on the wane, for better or for worse. The vegetable patch is tattered and tired, yet the spindly, anemic-looking plants still produce tomatoes and peppers in surprising quantities. I freely admit to being tired of gardening by this point in the season, but I know I’ll be sorry when the warm evenings are gone again for another year. Even though we are decades beyond the back-to-school rituals, there is a primordial tug of heartstrings each year when the August page on the calendar is flipped over. Never mind that September sees some of the hottest weather of the whole year, and forget about the last official day of summer being weeks off. No, Labor Day puts an end to the season.

But it’s a bittersweet time for other reasons, too. It reminds us that once, a long time ago, terror was something we experienced reading a Stephen King novel, not something our military waged war against. This time of year reminds us of how easily the prosaic and workaday aspects of life can suddenly become precious and heartbreaking. And it reminds us, in a way that chafes and harries, of how vulnerable we really are in this life. For an older generation, there is another day—December 7th—that must evoke the same bittersweet feelings of love and loss, but for me, and so many others, it is September 11th that will always bring me up short, cause a moment’s pause and a quick prayer. September reminds us that life is fleeting, like the days of summer. And over before we are ready, sometimes.

Afterwards, after that awful day, a lot was written about the World Trade Center—the architectural marvels and flaws of its design, the larger-than-life personalities behind the buildings, the iconic status the towers achieved. It was, for some, a modern day Babel—a hubristic attempt to reach heaven. But for most, I think, it was celebrated as an effort to allow those who rode its elevators and looked out its windows to feel free of earthly restraint, to experience the world from a loftier vantage point. To carry out the day-to-dayness of life up in the sky.

Lots of people yearn deeply for that feeling, yearn to be up among the birds and stars. In fact, our neighbor was one of those who loved being up high, flying his plane, living life just a bit closer to what Gerhardt calls “the heav’nly splendor.” And this time of year will now bring him to mind, too; it will remind us that life is unpredictable and that fate is capricious. But we will also remember how this community looked the shock and sorrow of his untimely death squarely in the eye and responded with kindness and support and generosity. I didn’t know my pilot neighbor, nor did many of those who leapt into action after his death. But, just as in 2001, a sense of needing to help—to combat the arbitrary and devastating with actions deliberate and good—surfaced quickly.

For me, September will always be a bit bittersweet, but it also now will be a testament to the people who make up this community—people who are deliberate and good. Fare thee well, neighbor, and Godspeed.

August 2008

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
--The Lake Isle of Innisfree, William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939

I am at the garden center’s check-out counter, waiting to pay for my late-season sale plants, when the college kid manning the cash register turns from his computer screen to face me. “Rosslyn Farms,” he says, a question obviously forming in his mind. I know his question before he asks it. Everyone who lives in our small neighborhood knows his question: “Where’s Rosslyn Farms? I know I’ve seen a sign for it somewhere…”

But, instead, the young man takes me by surprise, asking, “What’s it like living there?”

What, indeed? I’m not a small-talk champion under the best of circumstances—too dim-witted and slow of tongue. I need time to formulate sentences, to hone their grammar and spit-shine their syntax, rearranging words and ideas in my head like those machines that polish pebbles by tumbling them around until the hard edges are worn smooth. So when he asks his existential question, I do not expound engagingly on the singular charms of our borough. No, what I do instead, like a panic-stricken deer in headlights, is repeat the answer I’ve given so often before, the answer to that other question: I tell him where Rosslyn Farms is, not what it is like living there. Then I round up the new plants, and hustle back to my car, leaving a puzzled cashier in my wake.

On the drive home, I feel foolish for not being able to tell him what a wonderful place Rosslyn Farms is—all sorts of answers bubble up now that I have time to think. So, Garden Center Guy, this one’s for you:

Living in Rosslyn Farms is like living inside a John Cheever novel, but more forgiving, with architects and musicians, jewelers and accountants, execs and retirees all rubbing elbows at community picnics and council meetings. It’s a place where teenagers spend their summers driving around in beat-up old Volkswagens and Saabs, and where younger kids pedal their bikes furiously in the gloaming, hoping to beat their curfew after a day at the pool or soccer field or park. It’s populated by people who not only own ice buckets, but actually use them for drinks at the close of the day. It’s a neighborhood where couples enjoy those drinks on their patios or porches, and wave to others out for a walk in the cool of the evening, alma mater sweatshirts draped over their shoulders against the chill and dogs pulling excitedly on their leashes.

Living in Rosslyn Farms is like living the quintessential American Experience, where political lawn signs of differing persuasions dot the landscape each spring and fall, but don’t act as fences between neighbors, cutting off civil discourse. Where trees in staggering variety outnumber human residents 50 to one. Where architecturally-significant houses and modest bungalows share equal ground, sitting side by side in a pleasing and appropriate way, and cats watch intently from first floor windows at the birds capering outside. Where the taxes are numbingly high, the squirrels audacious, and the summer seemingly endless.

It is like living on Yeats’ Isle of Innisfree, where a deep yearning draws its inhabitant back—at the end of the workday, at the completion of a college education, at the dawn of a new life together. It is a place of comfort and peace, and although we don’t have the bee hives or linnets or lakeshore of Innisfree, our community exerts its own strong sense of place, and it calls out to me when I am not there—respite from the madness around us.

And that, Mister Sales Clerk, is what it’s like to live in Rosslyn Farms.

July 2008

…but while I breathe Heaven's air,
and Heaven looks down on me,
And smiles at my best meanings,
I remain Mistress of mine own self
and mine own soul.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Foresters (act IV, sc. 1)

We lost D’s mother a few weeks ago. Although I never asked her, I believe that July 4th—Independence Day—might have been her favorite holiday. Fiercely independent until the end, she spent her last weeks in great pain, but on her terms: at home. Although she was attended to by her children and various care givers, she remained “mistress of her own self and own soul,” just as Maid Marian does in Tennyson’s The Foresters.

But even before she became ill, her independence was bounded. By the time she’d taken her first breath, her fate was decided; like most all girls of her generation, she was headed for marriage and maternity. And though she carried out both duties without complaint, I—as an outsider—saw that she may have, given the chance, exercised that independence on a wider stage than wifedom and motherhood.

She had that flinty edge, that crystalline grit ineffably and intrinsically a part of so many Irish women. Daughter of a prosperous butcher and wife of a successful business owner, she nonetheless had the DNA of generations of poor but straight-backed Irish women who faced life’s adversities head on. She was frugal. She didn’t express regrets, even if she felt them. She was not sentimental (although she did bake batches of chocolate chip cookies each and every week for almost sixty years). And, as D has said, she “didn’t have a religious bone in her body.” Quite simply, she was practical, no-nonsense, and sure of herself; had she been born in 1960 instead of 1920, she would have made a formidable business woman.

Independence is such a keystone of the American experience, it is a little surprising that the holiday has come to be called simply “the Fourth of July” in place of the more meaningful “Independence Day.” As a nation, we value our individual and collective freedoms enough to wage war to protect them. As individuals, we yearn to remove the training wheels, to move into our first apartments, to become our own bosses. Ours is a country of 300 million little presidents, all demanding to call the shots in their own lives.

And yet, for all that standing alone that we do, we strive to create, maintain, and reinvent the ties that bind. Marriage, children, dinner parties, sporting events, worship services—all are attempts to connect, to fit together into a cohesive whole. Perhaps that’s why D’s mother didn’t express regret. Perhaps she saw that her individual independence was subservient to the part of her that knitted together her family, that her “best meanings” were as mother to five children and wife to a man who worked six days a week until he was 80. Maybe her independent self knew that her interconnected soul was the sweeter prize.

And maybe that is a good lesson to carry forth out of our grief—that our souls, with their ties to others, trump our stand-alone selves. That the connections are more valuable than the autonomy. That personal liberty is best when exercised for the betterment of others. D’s mother had other things to do besides bake thousands and thousands of chocolate chip cookies, but as Mistress of her own self and her own soul, she chose the cookies.

June 2008

May your shadow fall in pleasant places.
--Bob Hardwick, American composer & band leader



Oh, these early days of June up on the hill. With green, green grass below us, and blue, blue skies above, we let the golden sunshine wash over us, sticking--as Joni Mitchell once sang--to all our senses like butterscotch. It would be hard work to feel unhappy on days like this. It would be difficult to choose someplace for our shadows to fall that would be unpleasant, what with all the lush new growth surrounding us, the birds hopping around cockeyed in their search for a meal, the late-season lilacs wafting their perfume at unsuspecting passersby. These are the days that make us giddy, that bring on serious bouts of spring fever. These are the days that turn into memories.

We’re up early, and outside before the grass has had a chance to shed its dewdrops. Our feet make dark green tracks across the silvery wet lawn. There’s so much to do to keep the garden in check—weeds to pull, shoots to trim back, spent flowers to pinch—that we ricochet around the yard, starting one chore only to interrupt it by beginning something else that’s caught our eye. I begin by pulling out clover from under the Frazer firs, but before I realize it, I’m knee-deep in a hillside bramble of blackberries and wild roses, contributions to the landscape made, no doubt, by some furry or feathered resident carrying the seeds from place to place. When I finally look up from the prickly berry and rose canes, D has gone from spraying deer repellent to digging a bed for the dahlias.

And so it goes, from partially-completed task to new task, in a wide ellipse around the property, until at last we’re back to where we started from, with gardening flotsam and jetsam scattered across the grass from one property line to the other. Gloves and a pruner here, a basket full of chickweed and dead branches over there, sweatshirt and hat abandoned and hanging forgotten on the gatepost. Through it all, the dog has remained steadfast in her spot under the locust, surveying our haphazard handiwork with canine noblesse oblige.

Somehow, it all gets done in time for a late-afternoon glass of wine or bottle of beer and a long lounge in the hammock, a sense of real accomplishment swelling our chests. Never mind that every branch we trimmed and every weed we pulled will grow back by next week, twice as big. Never mind that there’s just no getting rid of crabgrass. Never mind that one truckload of mulch won’t be quite enough to finish the bed. Never mind the sore muscles or sunburned pates, the bug-bitten ankles or scratched-up arms. Never mind any of that. For now, right now, we’re content and feeling productive.

For some, a day spent shopping at the mall or an afternoon in front of a computer screen can end with the same sense of satisfaction and that right-with-the-world feeling. But for us, and for gardeners everywhere, it’s these days in early June, before droughts wither or hail punctures, before deer chomp or beetles decimate, that are most memorable for their pitch-perfect balance of work and relaxation, of labor and fruition. It is these days in early June that fuel all those mid-winter reveries of what it will be like to get our hands back in the warm, rich earth. These days, all too fleeting, are bountiful gifts from above, proof that there is order and beauty even while cyclones spin, and earthquakes rattle, and tornadoes flatten. These are the days when all one needs to do is breathe deep and whisper wordless thanks. These are the days. Oh yes, these are the days.

May 2008

I am the spirit of all that lives,
Labours, and loses, and forgives.
My breath's the wind among the reeds;
I'm wounded when a birch-tree bleeds.
--Irish poet Nora Chesson, 1871-1906

We’re a little heart-sick, up on the hill. Driving home on the country club road after work, I am greeted by sunshine and shadows in all the wrong places—acres of trees have been bulldozed between my morning and evening commutes, exposing views of ugly power lines and steel pylons set amidst a sea of equally-unlovely stumps, the ragged remains of hundreds (thousands?) of trees. The little mid-century ranch house that once sat at the edge of a small woods seems hopelessly adrift now, surrounded on three sides by a muddy, littered battlefield. The sign announcing the imminent construction of new homes has made good on its promise, and the trees have lost the battle.

And so it goes, battle after battle, until the war is won, and we’re all surrounded by cookie-cutter cul-de-sacs with names of natural features that no longer exist: Fox Den Acres, The Cottages at Reedy Creek, Beechnut Estates. Instead of the foxes and the reeds and the beech trees, we’ll have only vinyl siding and cinderblock and macadam. That 1950s ranch I’ve watched undergo a charming renovation over the past year will look sadly out of place now, once this new development is finished. It is as similar in quality and scale to a new-construction home as our noble chinquapin oak is to those spindly pin oaks plopped down in the postage-stamp front yards of all those new “estates”.

Not that there is a thing wrong with pin oaks—we have one—but what street needs forty? Is biodiversity, or any kind of diversity, not part of the jargon of construction today? Must each tree, each house, look just like its neighbor, jammed together, block after block, street after street, ad infinitum? Ad nauseum, for that is surely what I feel: sick. Sick to my stomach that, as a region, we continue to lose population, but manage to keep ripping apart huge swaths of forest and meadow for more housing, while perfectly serviceable homes sit vacant, waiting for new owners. Sickened that wild animals are forced to live in ever-decreasing spaces criss-crossed with dangerous man-made barriers, while we continue to dig up their habitats and divert streams to make way for yet another asphalt strip mall with the same shops as the strip mall right up the street. Heart-sick that Rosslyn Farms, with all its wildlife and woodland charm, is being swallowed whole by suburban sprawl.

I relate the news of the deforested acres to D, and we instinctively go out to look around and assure ourselves that the one small acre we control is still green. Our neighbor comes through the forsythia hedge with old photos in her hand, photos of her childhood spent in the house next door to ours. She tells us of playing as a child with the daughter of our home’s first owners under an esplanade of crab apple trees; of seeing pheasants and foxes run across the lawn; of sledding down the once-gentle slope behind our houses that is now a sheer drop-off overlooking the high school. Looking at those photos of rolling vistas, it’s almost more than I can bear and I go chasing after the dog as an excuse to walk away before my face belies the overwhelming sadness I feel at what we’re doing to the Earth.

I begrudge no one a home or a livelihood, but when will we learn that there is more intrinsic value to green space than another parking lot and one more pizza joint? When will we learn that a new 6,000 square foot home (with baseboards made from the same stuff as Tupperware) on an eighth of an acre is not wise—or necessary? When will we learn that old, existing houses with ample yards and mature landscaping are a better choice for human families as well as wildlife families? Room to move, bushes to hide under. Trees for shade, berries and nuts to eat. Quiet. Safety. Home. When will we learn? When it’s too late?

April 2008

So come, you storms of winter,
And then the birds in spring, again--
I do not count the time,
For who knows where the times goes.
Who knows where the time goes?
--Sandy Denny, British folk singer-songwriter (1947-1978)

Time is getting away from us, up on the hill. With Easter being so early, and the switch to Daylight Savings Time, it feels like we should be enjoying spring in her full glory, but instead of tulips and sunshine, we’re still contending with snow squalls and bare branches. There’s an hour of daylight left after work, but the wind and damp conspire against any late-day gardening. As anxious as we are to get our hands into the earth, we have to wait.

Instead, we bundle up on Sunday afternoon and take a quick walk ‘round the still-wintry property, gauging the size of leaf and flower buds, as if our watching will make them break forth sooner. After the tease of last spring, when an April freeze ruined all the fruit trees’ flowers, and dulled the garden for months afterwards, we’re even more anxious than usual (with both anticipation and anxiety) for brown to give way to green.

Since we are not parents and see our nieces and nephews only periodically, we are left with each other, the dog, and the garden as yardsticks against which to measure the passing of time. The grey in the dog’s muzzle, the height of the blue spruces we planted, the color of the viburnums’ leaves, these are our indications of where the time goes. And--for the garden, at least--springtime is the season in which we see the most remarkable signs of time’s passing. On Monday afternoon, it is raining, so we skip our stroll through the yard. On Tuesday, work gets in the way. By Wednesday, there are suddenly crocuses and sunbeam-yellow Corneliancherry blossoms beckoning us to visit. At week’s end, the forsythia and daffodils have joined the party; mid-month and the garden will be a riot of color. By the close of the growing season, the four-foot pines we planted when we moved in will be as tall as the house, and we will look at each other and say, “When did all this happen? Where did the time go?”

Time stretches and pulls, lags then flashes, flows in fits and starts. We’re discontent, burrowed under wool blankets, in the midst of an interminable winter. A heart beat later, D is in the loft of the sweltering barn, handing down the patio furniture, sweating and cursing the amount of work it takes to get ready for summer… We have just met, and I am sitting across the table from him at a restaurant, looking at a photo of his youngest brother’s new-born daughter. Blink, and she is standing with a group of high school friends in her parents’ driveway as we arrive for a party, talking about boys and football games and the homecoming dance… Now we’re tearing down the breeder’s driveway, an hour from home, with a tiny, howling puppy who desperately wants to return to the warmth of her mother’s side. One deep breath, and the dog’s chewed her way through two pairs of my father’s shoes and his favorite belt, all in one weekend visit. Another breath, and she’s the queen of the hill, puppy exuberance replaced by middle-aged obstinacy. We begin to hold our breath, trying to stave off canine old age, and worse. But that approach is fruitless. Who knows where the time goes?

But go, it does. April is proof-positive of that. We start out the month with Easter already a memory, and rush headlong into the warm days of spring, our eyes and thoughts focused on the summer ahead, Labor Day trips in the making, Christmas presents stashed away in the back of closets, retirement shimmering out there on the horizon. But time runs backwards, too. At least in our hearts and minds. Sometimes backwards is easier than forwards; other times, not. Either way, time spins out its line, and in these first quixotic days of spring, it’s easy to wonder where it all goes.

March 2008

With rushing winds and gloomy skies
The dark and stubborn Winter dies:
Far-off, unseen, Spring faintly cries,
Bidding her earliest child arise; March!
--Bayard Taylor, March

Winter’s giving way, up on the hill. Needing proof, we tramp around the property looking for signs of buds and blossoms. All the snow and rain of the past several months have left the ground beneath our shoes soft and giving where the sun shines, but still anvil-hard and hoary in the shadier parts of the garden. March really is an amalgam of snowflakes and sunshine, bluster and promise, icicle and flower petal. There’s a forsythia on the verge of yellow mayhem, growing from a bank of dirty snow. Dwarf irises, so delicate in bloom, are stalwartly poking up among the frozen remains of last autumn’s sedum and nasturtiums like brave and hardy swords of green. They share space above the old stone wall with several quince, who will offer up peach-colored blossoms in just a few days. We watch their daily progress through the bay window in the living room, or visit them outside when the wind isn’t too fierce, coaxing them on with sweet words of encouragement. Come on, you can do it—prove to us that spring’s arrived!

What ancient and primordial drive pushes us to long so for the spring? Spring, with its myriad chores of pruning and trimming, hauling and mulching, scrubbing and sweeping, doubling the number of items on our weekend To-Do list. In addition to the mundane indoor activities—dusting, laundry, mopping—we delve, elbow-deep, into still-frosty piles of rotting leaves that have overtaken every nook and cranny on the property. We tug at wind-whipped newspaper pages that are impaled on leafless branches. We coerce the dog into twig-gathering forays. All this in addition to, not in place of, the other household duties. Why, oh why, do we long for the spring?

But long we do, and that longing seems to appear earlier and earlier. As soon as the magic of the holidays wears thin, thoughts of sunshine and wisteria start popping up, with the cold and blustery New Year just weeks old. The seed companies exploit our longing by sending glossy pictures of the newest, boldest, hardiest plants that we Simply Must Have! Easy to Grow! Wow your neighbors! the catalogs trumpet. We gobble up the pictures, turning the pages quickly and greedily, anxious to see everything all at once, like starving orphans at some Dickensian banquet. Reaching the end, we start back at the beginning and slowly savor each plant, reading the descriptions aloud to the dog, who—truth be told—doesn’t look impressed. We tell each other, “Here, this one is perfect—it can go next to the front gate!” We start lists and fold down page corners. We (well, me—D isn’t as far gone, yet) draw up revisions of the garden plan to accommodate a bed of horseradish and rhubarb, a ring of Ilex verticillata around the yellow birch, an entire bed devoted solely to hellebores.

The man-hours needed to bring these dreams to fruition are no matter, this March self says; it will be wonderful. Our already over-burdened Summer selves may not agree, but March will brook no resistance. Spring, March announces, has sprung. Luckily, most of March’s dreams dissolve away under April’s sunshine, and the garden catalogs slip, forgotten, down between the cushions of the sofa, dogged-eared pages and all. The chores of spring, however, are a cold, hard reality. The gathering and sorting and disposing of are all part of the rhythm of the season. And after a cold, house-bound winter, we wouldn’t really want it any other way.

February 2008

Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's,
For that good bishop's sake.
--Michael Drayton

Now that winter has settled in, life slows to a crawl up on the hill. It’s dark outside as we get ready for work, and the day’s light is spent by the time we return home each evening. The frantic afternoon rush to water the sun-baked garden is just a distant memory, as is the summer’s long twilight which let us putter outside late into the balmy evening. Now, after work, we eat dinner at the kitchen counter, in the company of the evening news; by 8 pm, we’ve locked up the house and sport flannel pajamas and thick wool socks. We might as well be huddled around some smoky medieval fireplace, dressed in scratchy burlap and eating thin gruel out of a wooden bowl. It’s the Dark Ages, it is.

At least the weekend mornings give us a chance to watch as the birds arrive at the feeders. During the week, it’s too dark for birds to be out and about when we’re preparing to meet the work day, and too dark for us to see them, even if they were there. But at the weekend, we watch as tiny chickadees and finches, feathers fluffed out to trap as much body heat as possible, hang on the thistle feeder like brown cotton balls on the boll. The bigger birds, mostly cardinals and jays, squawk and chatter at the squirrel doing acrobatic stunts on new “squirrel-proof” bird feeder. The squirrel’s tail whips back and forth as he stuffs his cheeks with sunflower seeds. The jays finally have enough and start a dive-bombing campaign against the interloper until he takes the hint and hightails it up the oak.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, St. Valentine’s Day not only commemorated the 270 AD death of Valentinus, a Roman bishop, but also was thought to be the day that birds propose to each other and begin preparing a nest for the spring’s eggs. We like the idea of the scarlet cardinals courting the smaller dun-colored females. The males are eye-catching—red feathers against white snow and waxy-green pine needles. What girl could say no to such a handsome gentleman caller?

The dignified and dapper mourning doves seem always to be paired up—they roost and feed and fly together, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn on the wing. In stark contrast to the quiet doves, the finches are the raucous Corleone or Soprano family—they swoop down to the leafless wisteria arbor in great milling masses, squabbling and gossiping and hopping about. They torment each other at the feeder, jockey for position, push each other off the perches when too much time goes by. Just when we’re sure complete anarchy will reign, they regroup and move en masse to the thicket out by the willow tree, camaraderie restored.

Even the big black rooks and sooty grackles are a welcome diversion from the glacial pace of these winter days. They stalk through the lawn in shiny packs, glistening in the sun like a bunch of thugs with greased-back hair, leather jackets and all. “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way” runs through my head as I watch them strut. The grackles call to each other, hoarse-throated cries that send the dog on wild sprees of barking and yipping—torn between the urges to charge the birds and stay inside the warm house. Comfort usually prevails, and she contents herself with quiet growls while sprawled in front of the heating vent under the kitchen table.

With Easter so early this year, it’s a little easier to look out on the icy, barren garden and believe what Michael Drayton, Elizabeth I’s court poet, wrote over four hundred years ago: that winter is in decline by St. Valentine’s Day. Walking into the grocery, we’re met head-on by the scent of hyacinths. Soon, we’ll venture out to the garden and search for those brave green arrowheads poking up from the cold earth: the year’s first daffodils. Maybe we’ll cut a few quince or forsythia branches and bring them in for forcing. But today, it’s martyred Roman bishops and West Side Story and bird marriages that occupy our still-snowy thoughts.

January 2008

From Ghosties and Ghoulies
And Long-Leggedy Beasties,
And Thyngs That Go Bump in the Nyght:
Goode Lord Deliver Us.
--Traditional Scottish Prayer

Life is returning to normal, up on the hill. The Christmas decorations come down on Epiphany, the day, according to the liturgical calendar, that the Magi reached Bethlehem. Celebrated on January 6th, Epiphany is also the end of the 12 Days of Christmas, so a fitting time to put away the garlands and lights. In fact, since Medieval times, it’s been considered bad luck in Britain to let the holly and mistletoe linger inside after Twelfth Night. According to even older Celtic tradition, the evergreens’ power to keep the winter spirits away was strongest on December 21st, the winter solstice, and waned throughout the following days. By January 6th, the end of Samhain--the Celts’ harvest festival--the plants’ power was spent.

So, away with the decorations! The house looks as bare as the gardens, once all the holiday greens come down from the mantles, but it’s a refreshing kind of bareness. And it feels good to polish wood that’s been hidden under evergreen boughs, to get the Advent Wreath off the breakfast table, and to empty the refrigerator of egg nog and left-over party food. The dog is relieved that her nemesis, the vacuum cleaner, stops making daily appearances to suck up all the stray pine needles.

Outside, we wait for a mild day, so we can get out and trim some of the woody perennials. The two gigantic euonymus in front of the bay windows were planted the spring after the house was finished, in 1941. No matter how diligent we are about cutting them back so they don’t swallow all the morning light pouring into the living and dining rooms, by autumn the ancient shrubs are five feet high again. With a 60-year head start on us, there’s no containing their growth.

D wonders aloud what all the trees and shrubs we’ve added to the landscape will look like in 60 years. Who will be complaining and cutting them back on some sunny winter day as the 22nd century approaches? How tall will the viburnums and dogwoods be? Will any neighboring houses be visible through the thicket? Will branches from the Colorado Blue Spruce and China Girl Holly be used to protect and decorate the house for that far-future Christmas? Gardening forces these sorts of questions—it is, as so many have said, the ultimate act of faith to plant a tree, knowing that its limbs will shade a future generation, not, perhaps, oneself. Still, it is an act of faith that we enjoy, and on this brisk January afternoon, we make our rounds, checking each sapling and twig for signs of next spring’s growth.

Maybe it’s the stripped-down look of the house and garden, or maybe the fusion of all those primordial mid-winter customs is somehow encoded in our DNA, but whatever the reason, it feels good and somehow right to be starting the new year unencumbered. The Druids and early Church fathers knew that the rich excess of the holidays comes at just the right time. The long, cold nights demand an extra dose of goodwill and cheer to keep us afloat. But already we can feel that the corner has been turned; the sun appears earlier and lingers longer each day. Although there are weeks of winter ahead, the glow of candles and sound of carols have once again pulled us along through the darkest part of the calendar. The mysterious properties of pine and holly and mistletoe have indeed worked their magic in keeping away for another year those “ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night.” And we find ourselves ready to face the coming year’s offerings renewed and refreshed, our load somehow lightened.