Spring Thing

BK photo, taken on Easter

Spring began today.  Sure, the calendar says it's been spring for a month.  But in the places I've lived before, in PA and New England and the Midwest--there's been this transitional period, the thaw, the weeks of cloudiness and rain.  But spring, that begins with sunshine and warmth.

Here on the North Coast of CA, it's not the first time that we've had some sun to spell the waterlogged week.  But today felt different.  And even though next week looks rainy again, there was little more feeling of future frequency in the sunshine.

You could see spring in the annual appearance of the California poppies, or the profusion of calla lilies (not as tall yet as they were a few years ago, but the flowers are bigger, some the size of saucers, if you remember saucers.)  I'd feared for the ferns in the front of the house--while some were growing near the walls elsewhere, they'd disappeared entirely from the area in front of the picture window.  But once they started coming back, they kept on coming.  On the sheltered side they're as wild and profuse as ever.

The hardwood trees are greened up, and even the old linden is leafing earlier than usual.

But it's not just the plant life.  Today in the remains of Shay Park I came upon a group of young humans, which included an electric guitarist and drummer making some spacey yet woodsy sounds.   Elsewhere I saw more, their walk expressing a certain familiar restless buoyancy.

I recalled the brilliant but very short springs in Galesburg, Illinois where I went to college.  After a heartlessly long and brutal winter slid into a chilly, murky and rainy pre-spring,  it all changed, seemingly in one day.  The air was warm and as soft as it ever got there.  Everything was a sudden sunlit green--grass, hedges, bushes and trees in a green embrace-- under an amazing sky.

This sort of spring lasted only a few weeks, maybe a month, before the debilitating summer heat muscled in and became a dominating and depressing overseer for the next several months.

The tragedy of that one spring month was that we were nearing the end of the school year, and this fantastic May was filled with final papers and final exams.  As well as the anxieties for the onrushing summer, when environs, relationships, status and even selves would abruptly change. These days of grandeur were too often only glimpsed through distracted, frustrated and worried eyes.

With the sap rising in more than the trees, we hurtled ourselves into heated parties at night.  And so the bright days became even more hazy and distant, a few startling snapshots amidst the apotheosis and wreckage of the school year.

All among the layers of memories now, while I walk with different challenges in a different place in a different spring.  But those springs are present, too.

Flyway

Early this drizzly afternoon, I opened the front door to an unusual chatter of birds.  And there they were--perched on bare branches of every tree around, including the big Linden next door.  They seemed to gather there, and I had time to go around back with a better view of this tree and snap a few photos.  Before long they were all gone.

I'm not very good at identifying birds, though I love them all.  So I'm not sure if these were locals.  But from this behavior it seems possible that they are migrants, either leaving here for elsewhere, or pausing here in transit.  This area near Humboldt Bay is a flyway for various bird species, and February is a month some travel.  Anyway, I enjoyed seeing them and especially hearing them.  I miss the songbirds back in western PA.

This is also about the time that the hummingbirds chow down before they abandon the feeders fringing the back porch, usually later this month.  Some leave the area (the Allen hummers) though others stay (the Anna hummers.)  Even the ones that stay don't check the feeders very often if at all.  I see them in the front yard, if anywhere.  This year we've had our normal minimum of three regular visitors, a family that nests nearby for generations I suspect.  I didn't see much of them this year.  Time flies, along with the birds.  

Beachy

Nice day, how about a visit to Mad River Beach?  Sunny and pretty warm here but you can't predict the beach--likely it's cooler and maybe windier.  So experience teaches.

Turns out we'd moved to San Diego without moving.

First of all, the place was full of cars.  The ocean access parking lot was overfilled, the road had parked cars back to the turnoff to Mad River (where the huge expanse of asphalt parking lot was still flooded.)

The beach therefore was a good deal more populated than usual.  And what a sight for a North Coast beach: lots of people in bathing suits on beach blankets and frolicking in the surf.  I've never seen anything like it.  Here.

Among those on the beach seemed to be a lot of students, and given HSU's recruitment orientation these days, probably from southern California.  They must have felt right at home.  But where is home?

There was no wind, and the sun was hot.  It was hot on the ocean beach.  It felt like at least 80.  No need for even the light windbreaker I brought.

So this collision of feelings: This is great!  This is way weird!  I've felt it before in the past few years, but never so sharply.

Officially it was a record-breaker at 74 degrees F.  And as it turned out, it was also a record-breaker in San Diego, where it was officially 84.

It could be ascribed to just the usual unusual weather, I suppose.  Except that it's happening a lot.  And then there's the beautiful linden tree next door.  It's usually the last to shed its leaves in the winter, and the last to turn green again in summer.  But its all green and leafy now.

If I were Thoreau, who kept a careful record of all such things where he lived, I could provide exact dates.  So I don't know for sure.  But it certainly seems early.

Winter Light

Just before sunset, light on the recently bared branches of the linden tree next door.  I took a series of photos in December; this is one. Click it to see the full photo.

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago. (As usual with my photos, it looks much better when you click on it.) The branches of this Linden tree, which is in the yard of a neighboring house, are bare and black now. We can see this tree from our kitchen window. It is a large, beautiful tree, with big leaves. Deciduous trees aren't the rule hereabouts, but there are some that shed their leaves. The linden is both late to bloom and late to shed. So I'm usually surprised to see it still have leaves in November, and then there comes a day when I look out and the branches are bare. I never actually saw the process of it losing its leaves until this year---and I also saw why. The leaves just poured off this tree. It must lose the majority of its leaves in a single day. This was the day.

This Linden has a story, or maybe a myth. When we moved in here, the old woman who lived in that house said her late husband had brought it over from Germany many years before as a seedling hidden in his luggage. Just a few years later she died as well, and her sister moved in. Her sister soon began to decline--we found her crying on our walk one rainy New Year's Eve. She was lost and disoriented. We got her back inside her house, where much of the furniture was overturned. Margaret put her to bed, and I found the phone number of her brother, who said he hadn't seen her in months. Soon after that, she was under the care of a nurse who came every day. She also died a couple of years ago. Now the house is owned by a couple who live in a nearby town and rent it out. They had the tree trimmed back in the spring. The woman said she would have had it cut down and removed if it hadn't cost so much. Margaret told her the story of how it came to be there.

This Linden is likely to be 50 or 60 years old. The Linden tree can live a very long time--nine hundred years or more. It is a famous tree in England (where it's called the lime) and Europe (tilla), particularly sacred in Poland, and in German villages it was the tree under which meetings, ceremonies and other civic events were held, including dancing. Its flowers were used to make a medicinal tea. Perhaps somewhere they still are. I don't think this particular tree is doing very well since it was "trimmed." Until now, it's been one of the best things about this neighborhood--looking out the kitchen window and seeing that magnificent tree. You can tell just by looking at it that it could outlast us all. If it just survives us.