The neighborhood is full of good smells - a seasonal event that one must enjoy before the air grows hot and fetid and laden with city stink. For now, magnolias smell like wine, and there are grape hyacinths, narcissus, mown lawns. Nice to return to this, after having been away.
We spent our first night on the Vermont land. After a day of tromping around in muck boots, cataloging in our minds what is there (two creeks that go underground here and back up again there, hazelnut bushes, coltsfoot and cattails, cold balsam-scented breezes, thrushes singing), we shared French lunch (that's snacks with wine!) with new friends, and later set up our tent. As a storm blew in, we listened to a woodcock doing its breeding display, and the rain and the wind. There is a special kind of insomniac anxiety that goes with spending the night in a tent in a storm, and it's not the kind I'm used to, where you just lie there and fret. This kind of anxiety is more elemental, I think, and I appreciate it, in a way, because the scary weather makes me feel real and energized. While worrying about money and work and stupid shit does not. I love a storm and a tent. I do.
6 comments:
Thank you for this, Zoe. I need it.
French lunch is my favorite meal!
Well said. Come back soon.
I wish our grape hyacinths grew like that. Our sandy soil always leaves them a little stunted. Yours look so lush!
Your French lunch sounds perfect, and I agree, I'd much rather rough it in a tent, than have to put up with the mundane day to day!
I can't take credit for the grape hyacinths - they were picked by my five-year-old friend in her own garden. I was impressed with their size as well:)
I know exactly what you mean about the night and the tent. I never want to feel that intense anxiety again but then again I kind of do.
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