Spring

Spring has not officially arrived, but the weather this week has been very spring-like, more like central Texas than north-central Georgia, with temperatures in the high-70s and low-80s. I'm on spring break, a week's vacation from tutoring part-time, and have spent the first part of the week gardening. So I'm especially attuned to the natural world this week and to all that we do to make it conform to our needs and expectations.

Having this extra time at home has provided me with more opportunities to pay attention to nature in a suburban setting. One morning, I spied a hawk swooping out of the sky to perch on a neighbor's metal fence. It sat there, looking into the shady backyard where a small dog lives, but swiveled its head to watch me warily as I approached from across the street. This hawk must have a nest nearby, for I saw it again a couple of days later, flying up from a perch in another neighbor's yard to circle and drift above the sweetgum and black locust. In fact, this is probably the hawk I've written about previously, the one my daughter observed catching a small mammal.

Yesterday while I was turning over the soil in our garden to mix in the compost, one neighbor who has a home childcare business came across the street with the entire troop, about six young children. They were on a short expedition to look for signs of spring. I was part of the afternoon's exhibit, an example of spring: someone preparing a garden. My neighbor asked the children to guess what I might be planting; most of them guessed daffodils. That is, one boy answered "daffodils," and every child after him gave the same answer. I told them that, yes, I was planting flowers (not daffodils--those will be planted this fall if I prepare the ground in time), herbs, and vegetables.

Earlier today, I spied violets blooming in our backyard, a sure sign of spring to me and a remembrance. Images of violets always bring to my mind a particular place and a certain feeling. The place is my best friend's former home, located in Denham Springs, Louisiana. Chris's shady yard was always covered with violets in the spring; I had never seen so many violets in one place, unexpected jewels on a carpet of pine needles. I will always associate violets with the early days of our friendship, with the excitement that accompanies every new relationship: the joy of discovering a kindred spirit, the exultant hope of future shared experiences. Somewhere, probably in a journal I kept at the time, there is a recipe for Chris's violet jelly. Now Chris (Christine) lives far away from Louisiana, in northern California, a home I have yet to visit. But this memory and its attendant emotions--faded but still felt in the very core of my being--remind me of the promise of every spring, of every friendship, of every distant but unforgotten love.