THE RAINS came gently last night after so many weeks of dry weather. I lay awake with the window open, listening to the burbling and thrumming, thinking of rainy days at summer camp, stretched out on my bunk reading comics and writing letters to my mother. And of afternoon thunderstorms in Washington, that lush city of trees and parks and steep avenues, my hometown, built on a swamp.
Tomorrow I get on the boat at 7 a.m. and drive backwards in my rainy memory, first to Virginia and my sister, then to Delaware and my Dad. Maryland, like my mother and Massachusetts Avenue and Northwest Washington, in the rearview mirror. But like so many tricks of the mind, not really gone.
I have been up and down I-95 hundreds of times in my adult life, moving as I have from New York to Connecticut to Rhode Island to Connecticut to Massachusetts. (Good Lord, more than 20 domiciles in all that. ‘Just keep moving’ was my mantra for too long.) I have also hopped on the boat, as we call the ferry, to get over to America probably hundreds of times since I moved to this Island 13 years ago.
And yet I always get a little nervous.
This afternoon I got my first vaccine. It took me four tries and three weeks to get an appointment at our hospital, but I am very grateful to have nabbed this jab before traveling. And that my various allergies seem not to have caused any side effects.
I am leaving the boys behind. We joked that I should have created a You Tube video for all the watering and care of seedlings and dahlia tubers and garden beds and awakening perennials that will need to occur. Not necessary, as I know the one who can use the telephone (the other has paws) will not hesitate to send text messages and photos with ‘Help!’ Emojis. At least this rain, a rain that has turned from gentle to drenching, postpones the watering.
I don’t like leaving them, and I am such a homebody (one who has not really minded the decreased social activity of the pandemic times) that it feels unsettling to go. And yet I want to see my Dad and sister so much.
That’s how it goes. I’ve worked too hard in the last few months. Written and edited literally thousands and thousands of words. Spent too much time in front of the computer. My neck hurts and I’ve gained weight from eating too many chocolate chips and sitting too much. But I’m listening to that. Getting up from the chair will be good.
One bright note on all that work: I wrote two gardening pieces last week, one on (you guessed it) a group of spring-flowering plants I’m in love with — hellebores (pictured here). We ventured over to Polly Hill Arboretum to see them in bloom and walked the path to the Far Barn, past the magnolia, the stewartia, the rhodies waking up. Polly Hill is magical.
Last in my rambling pre-travel thoughts today: I am reading Lab Girl. Have you read it? Somehow this memoir floated around me, just published, when I worked part-time at Bunch of Grapes bookstore for a year and a half. (That time was crucial in rebooting my love of reading.) And yet I couldn’t grab it; I shelved it, sold it, brushed dust off of it. Read the jacket copy. But never bought it and took it home. The time wasn’t right.
Books find you when you’re ready, and now is the perfect time for me to read how one woman (a very accomplished scientist) manages her passion for plants and science and discovery along with her clinically overactive brain by writing things down.
I just read this paragraph and want to share it with you. It comes right after she learns about the death of her favorite childhood tree, a tree who’s life – a life with milestones – she never really considered until it died. (Does everyone have their own childhood tree? I never thought about that.)
“Time has also changed me, my perception of my tree, and my perception of my tree’s perception of itself. Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life. It has also convinced me that carefully writing everything down is the only real defense we have against forgetting something important that once was and is no more, including the spruce tree that should have outlived me but did not.”
There is a lot to unpack there, which I haven’t time to tonight, but perhaps you will. I will turn it over tomorrow as I take the familiar road home, bumping into bits and pieces of my past along the way.
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Enjoy your extended rest period with your family. Hope you’ll hear a bullfroggie or two, especially if you are sitting by the side of a lake – boom boom!
Lab Girl is the book my husband choose for our book club. He is a scientist and so much of the book really resonated with him. Our book group all loved it. Her writing style is precise and phenomenal.
Safe travels! Our hellebore are blooming (in Maryland). I love them too. I hope you see many and have a wonderful trip.
I loved the book. I do hope you enjoy it.
I trust that when you return home that your beds will be well tended and you will get welcome embraces and puppy kisses.
Until then enjoy your well deserved rest and safe journeys.
Thank you Jacquie! I know my boys are taking good care of everything, and I must admit, it sure is nice to be away for a bit!
Thank you Lynn. Yay hellebores!
Hi Kathy,
Someone mentioned you were on the FC Zoom the other day. Sorry I missed saying hi to you! I am glad to hear that about Lab Girl. It is so interesting to sort of get inside the head of different smart people through these memoirs — helps broaden one’s outlook!