More Poppy, Less Road

Post 10

April 19, 2013
8:03 am

Ending anything in the middle of spring seems anachronistic. There are blooms everywhere, small stems and stalks pushing with determination. Everything is green. Everything is moving toward the vibrant and away from the dormant. There is a wildness that I notice every spring, different from the sluggishness of summer, the mauzy farewell of autumn and the tight constraint of winter. It is natural for every aspect of life to be lifting its heels a little higher as it steps into each new day.

I've learned from this blog that I can't escape the sentimental writing that environmental scientists shun. I realize that I can't ignore the side of me that reflects with metaphor and poetic language. Fortunately, the writers we've read through this course haven't completely abandoned that either, but they base their reflections on solid, analytical rock. My writing tends to lean. I would be completely satisfied to write that the forsythia are shouting in yellow this morning. 

I had goals for this blog: dedicated writing and writing as a witness. I appreciated the assignment of consistency, writing each week from the same place. This was a particular challenge for me since I live two hours from the place I call home in New Jersey. I would time my visits back to my mother's house in order to sit outside for twenty or more minutes and record what I found. I had an appointment with a patch of grass and during the course of blog writing, that patch slowly became comfortable, dead icy blades turned green again.

My standing appointment helped me with the most important part of this blog--being a witness. I was "forced" to observe my surroundings, take note of the animals and trees I've viewed thousands of times, and in one of my favorite idioms of writing, I had to "put them down" on paper. Last week, my mom finally received notice from her lawyer that the township was ready to decide on a date for closing. September, they said, september is fine. I immediately thought of what would be in bloom that month, the end of the hydrangea, the slowly turning golden leaves of the maples. Instead of standing inside the house behind a window saying goodbye, I pictured myself in a spot similar to the one I've chosen throughout this winter and spring: on a small plot of land, claiming it for my family and myself one last time.

The robins hop back and forth on the tender grass where I sit. There is loud, vociferous birdsong every morning. I received a text from my mom earlier in the week, excitement and exclamation marks--"Happy Spring! The swallows have returned!" When she became impatient with the silence from the township as they waited for soil tests and contract wording, she emailed their lawyer to imply that it was illegal to tear down the barn once the swallows had nested in its rafters. I'm not completely surprised that we are timing our departure based on the home life of birds.

I don't think I'm going to give up on this blog. I can't say I'll have any readers in the future, but as usual, I'm not sure that bothers me. It's enough that I'm taking the time to write about this place, to remember the smaller moments of each season and record the last few seasons we had here. I know my mom and I will take our own memories with us when we finally leave in the fall, but someday, maybe we'll open up a blog with a title about noticing the individual petals of a poppy instead of staying in the car racing by a field of the bright flowers, and we'll remark to each other about that last wonderful year on the farm. "Remember those bushes of forsythia around the pond? They were beautiful."