Since returning to the west side of the Atlantic (leaving behind sweet, full-bore Madrid springtime for Vermont's slow, teasing, often fickle turn from late winter toward the warm season), have been dealing with the backwash of the last months in Madrid and the prospect of making drastic changes in what remains of my life in this part of the world. Vermont countryside slowly shifts away from winter austerity, the mornings bringing birdsong instead of winter silence, while my system makes the transition from Spanish life (not a sedate tea party of a process).
Outside, after a stretch of springlike days, the green of newly awoken grass is frosted with sprawling sprays of dandelions. Above, the sky reflects my inner state, going blue to gray and back unpredictably, often in open defiance of the forecasts. Behind all that, I feel a steady source of light, and when I take a moment to count blessings, I find plenty to be grateful for.
One evening of an especially springlike day, me in the living room watching a DVD of the series Weeds. Birds come and go at the feeder outside an open dining room window. The credits roll, 'Tea for the Tillerman' plays over them. At the window, a purple finch joins in, bursting into loud joyous song, its music resonating through the rooms at this end of the house.
In recent days:
In Montpelier: a truck sports a sticker in its rear window reading I DON'T KNOW. I can relate.
Visiting friends in Cambridge, Mass., spring putting on a spectacular show of flowering trees and bushes -- vibrant displays of white, pink, rose, lavender everywhere. Out trekking around the city's eastern reach, coming across a Frank Gehry building, it looking like a something plucked from a comic book and planted in the middle of an otherwise normal urban street.
Milkweed fluff drifts through country air, sometimes thick enough that driving through it feels like entering a spring snowstorm.
I watch 'No Direction Home,' for the next two days 'Visions of Johanna' occupies the #1 slot in my internal jukebox, portions of it drifting softly through my thoughts over and over (relieved now and then by bits of 'It's Alright, Ma....'). A gentle soundtrack that softens some of the days' rougher edges.
This inner jukebox thing? Sometimes I have no problem with it at all.
I'm up far too early as I write this, my body still working on Spanish time. Outside, darkness slowly gives way to daylight, the temperature hovers just above freezing. An online weather map shows a band of showers moving in our direction. Time to call it quits, slip back between the sheets for a while.
Later.
España, te echo de menos
rws 6:42 AM [+]
