Seeing Purple

Wandering home from the grocery store yesterday, I traveled down one of my favorite streets. It’s only a block long and curves up and down and left and right. The post at one end is always dressed in a nod to whatever holiday approaches, as are the homes and yards of many residents. This week, colorful eggs hang from trees and bushes; pastel wreaths hang on doors.

I stopped for a moment to sit in the grass and pet a black-and-white cat named Fearless. His fearful, half-tailed Calico sister did and did not want the same treatment. She circled round us, keeping her distance and staring at me all the while, then scented me by licking her brother’s face and mouth. Guess I wasn’t as intriguing as she first thought for she looked at me once more and then took off across the street. After a bit more Fearless petting, I took off, too.

Further down Louisiana, I found another treat: Irises of deep purple and lavender were beginning to unfold. The day before, they were just tight buds.

I love watching how time and weather alter the landscape moment by moment—alter the fragrance in the air, alter the palette of plant life.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
—from The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

What’s unfolding in your neighborhood?

Mother-Struck

Daffodils are in full bloom now and crocuses have flaunted their palette of colors—purple, lavender, white, yellow, gold. This weekend I spotted my first hyacinth and yesterday, while on a walk through the neighborhood, I turned a corner to see a tree bursting in cotton-candy blossoms.

This morning? Everything’s blanketed in snow.

It’s allowed, I suppose. It’s still Winter, after all. As poet and novelist Alice Walker wrote:

“Mother. Once again doing it just any old way you like. Mother is my favorite name for Nature, God, All-ness.”
—from “Crimes Against Dog” in Dog Is My Co-Pilot