Fagus sylvatica

It's been one of the wettest springs in recent memory. I don't mind the rain. It seems to slow everything down, which is nice. After a week of rain all is drenched in saturated colors, bringing everything intensely to life. I came upon this magnificent beech tree this morning and had to stop to admire it for a long time. It had recently lost a limb, but that hardly seems to diminish its powerful presence. It's no wonder that ancient cultures as different as the Egyptians, the Druids, and the Chinese all had a reverence for trees. I love the way this beech tree looks so primordial, its shallow roots exposed by the soil erosion on the steep slope on which it stands. It looks like a drawing of a tree in a fairy tale book.

Katharine S. White

"The only moment in the year when she actually got herself up for gardening was on the day in fall that she had selected, in advance, for the laying out of the spring bulb garden -- a crucial operation, carefully charted and full of witchcraft. The morning often turned out to be raw and overcast, with a searching wind off the water--an easterly that finds its way quickly to your bones. The bad weather did not deter Katharine: the hour had struck, the strategy of spring must be worked out according to plan. This particular bulb garden, with its many varieties of tulips, daffodils, narcissi, hyacinths, and other spring blooms, was a sort of double-duty affair. It must provide a bright mass of color in May, and it must also serve as a source of supply--flowers could be stolen from it for the building of experimental centerpieces.

Armed with a diagram and a clipboard, Katherine would get into a shabby old Brooks raincoat much too long for her, put on a little round wool hat, pull on a pair of overshoes, and proceed to the director's chair--a folding canvas thing--that had been placed for her at the edge of the plot. There she would sit, hour after hour, in the wind and the weather, while Henry Allen produced dozens of brown paper packages of new bulbs and a basketful of old ones, ready for the intricate interment. As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion--the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection."

E.B. White, foreword to Katharine S. White's Onward and Upward in the Garden

I love E.B. White's touching description of his wife's bulb planting in her dying days. The small, fragile figure defying illness and inclement weather to carry on her gardening plans, "calmly plotting her insurrection"-- this is just how I would like and hope to end my days. It is also apt that these words appeared in her only published book, a collection of her articles on gardening for the New Yorker which E. B. White put together after her death, an act that he claims saved his life, giving him her words in her absence. 

Lily's Desk

Lily's been asking for a typewriter ever since we moved to Brooklyn. She had her eyes on a couple of typewriters from the antique shop down the street, but I thought they were not quite right. Today, she cleared her desk and told me that she made the perfect space for the typewriter that she hopes I will buy her one day.

Exiles, prophets and pilgrims

"At the end, we are all the exiles and the prophets and the pilgrims of our own life.  It seems, ironically, that those who leave the greatest impression and the most lasting legacy are those who live, not as though the world is a monument to ourselves, but rather an ocean tide against which we are fragile, vulnerable and ultimately luminous in our capricious and curious humanity."

Lexanne Hamilton, in an essay on Frederick Law Olmsted

Lexanne is the smartest woman in my class. She always has the most original perspective on things and delves more deeply into any subject that we touch upon in class. I love this quote, and it makes me think of Dad, who did live his life as though the world was an "ocean tide" against which he never failed to hang onto his luminous humanity. It is a fortuitous chance that I get to be in the same class with Lexanne, along with some other very talented students, from whom I have learned much, because I had to take a semester off in the summer. I am constantly reminded of Sebastian Faulk's motto: "La Vie s'arrange, mais autrement." 

Bethesda Fountain

It's one of my favorite spots at Central Park, and it was empty for a rare moment. The statue was done by Emma Stebbins, the first woman to receive a public commission for a major work of art in New York City. Called the Angel of the Water, the bronze sculpture refers to a passage in the Gospel of John where an angel blessed the Pool of Bethesda and gave it healing powers. The statue therefore commemorates the opening of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842, which provided New York City with a reliably pure supply of water for the first time, thus eradicating the threat of cholera.

Trees

I am studying trees, learning to identify them by habit, trunks, and foliage. It's a bit complicated since all the trees are changing daily at the moment and nothing looks the same from one day to the next. A tree can look completely different naked and with buds, flowers, and foliage. They also vary enormously in their shape, just as no human beings look the same even though we are all of the same species. 

I also love the whole history of plant names. There is a large literature devoted to the stories of plants and their place in culture.

Central Park

I spent the morning walking through Central Park under a soft rain. It felt like walking in a dream. I needed  to slow down, to turn things off for a moment. Everything has been highly charged for me these past few weeks. When I was young, I wanted to live with my skin open, and sometimes, as is the case lately, I find myself unable to lose the habit even if it's tearing me apart.