They follow right on the heels of the snowdrops: those cheery little faces, spreading through flowerbeds in bright stripes of purple and gold and white, lifting their faces to the morning sun.
Like the snowdrops, I read about them in The Secret Garden; learned to look for them in Oxford; and truly fell in love with them during my years at Harvard. There was (is) a house with a purple door right across the street from my beloved Darwin’s, and the first crocuses always bloom there, in a triangular bed at the end of the driveway. They bloom all over that part of Cambridge, of course, but that yard is where I go every spring, checking to see if the green sprouts are poking up yet, through the grit and mulch and winter leaf litter.
Sometimes they bud when it’s still snowing out; some years they wait a little longer to emerge. But always, always, they arrive eventually, heralding the end of winter’s gray cold and biting winds. They are the first shot of true color to emerge after the snow, and that jolt of purple and gold goes straight to my heart, every year.
Hello, friends. It’s (suddenly) May, and the world is in bloom – the apple blossoms, lilacs and my beloved tulips are splashing out with color these days. I’m feeling the need for a new writing series, so this month I’ll be sharing with you reflections on – what else? – the flowers I love.
I’ve always been a flower fiend, though as a little girl, I didn’t see a lot of the flowers I regularly see here in New England. We had a daylily bed out back (until our rabbit, Barney, ate them all), and I regularly saw dandelions and other wildflowers, but the vegetation in West Texas is wildly (ha) different from where I live now.
My mother has red yucca and oleander in her yard, these days, and I remember puffball begonia plants and potted geraniums in front of our house in Dallas. But the flowers I read about in storybooks mostly remained just that. West Texas is too dry for lilacs and hydrangeas, crocuses and magnolias, and the only zinnias and gladioli I knew were the ones in my Neno’s garden in Ohio.
One of the beautiful, consistent gifts of living in Boston is watching the cycle of flowers as the seasons change. Again: we have seasons in West Texas, but they’re drastically different (and much dustier, mostly) than the ones here in New England. The earliest spring flowers, especially, are dear to me not only for themselves, but as signals that the winter is finally over. The green shoots signal warmer air, longer days, the emergence of people and activities from winter hibernation. And the first ones out – sometimes poking up through literal snow – are, fittingly, the snowdrops.
I first read about snowdrops in The Secret Garden, when Ben Weatherstaff teaches Mary about the plants she’ll see emerging in the Yorkshire spring. I didn’t know what they looked like, though I assumed they’d be white. I didn’t quite understand that some flowers could sprout, even bloom, when it was still cold out. (In my hometown, where the temperature swings can be wild, and spring arrives in mid-March, it doesn’t quite work like that.)
I don’t think I saw snowdrops with my own eyes until my first spring in Oxford, as a college student. There, as here, you can find them in flowerbeds and gardens, often the first reliable sign of green after the winter rains. I was amazed to see them blooming before spring had truly started, in University Parks and in front gardens behind low stone walls. They were a delightful surprise that first year, and every year I have lived in Boston, they have proved a reliable harbinger.
When I worked in Cambridge, I learned to watch for signs of spring: the crocuses in the yard of the house across the street from Darwin’s; the bulbs in front of the yellow house on Hilliard Street; the daffodils along the Charles River, and later the lilacs in front of Longfellow House. I learned, too, to watch for snowdrops there: even in the bitterest winters, they start popping up all over Cambridge in February and early March. They’re often struggling up through mulch and snow and leaf litter, but they are determined. Touched by weak early-spring sunshine, they break through and ring their tiny bells to herald winter’s end.
Only now, in spring, can the place be named: tulip poplar, daffodil, crab apple, dogwood, budding pink-green, white-green, yellow on my knowing. All winter I was lost. Fall, I found myself here, with no texture my fingers know. Then, worse, the white longing that downed us deep three months. No flower heat. That was winter. But now, in spring, the buds flock our trees. Ten million exquisite buds, tiny and loud, flaring their petalled wings, bellowing from ashen branches vibrant keys, the chords of spring’s triumph: fisted heart, dogwood; grail, poplar; wine spray, crab apple. The song is drink, is color. Come. Now. Taste.
I recently read Dungy’s wonderful memoir, Soil (coming in May), which explores her experience of tending and diversifying her Colorado garden. I’m less familiar with her poetry, but loved this one – you can read the full poem at the Poetry Foundation website.
April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry – with an emphasis on women – on Fridays this month, as I do every year.
We sleep in the desert on a land full of stories, and all night the wind reads the news. We’ve left our attachments – expectations and a newspaper – on the picnic table for the night, surrendering our documented selves and reported names to sleep.
All night the wind sifts our dreams, reading the truth. We sleep deeply but aware, like stones skipping water, and hear the news doing somersaults over the land. Finally, it blows into a cactus, sacrificed on a crown of thorns.
The moon encrypts new names into our dreams, and near dawn, coyotes sing the real headlines in yips of happiness.
We wake to a world without word, only scent and beauty. The Word is written everywhere on the land.
I discovered this poem last fall in the wonderful anthology What Wildness Is This. As we approach both spring and Easter weekend, I thought it seemed fitting to share here.
April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry – with an emphasis on women – here on Fridays this month, as I do every year.
March has been up and down, as always – varied weather, great music at ZUMIX and a few local adventures. As the month wraps up, here’s what I have been reading:
Drew Leclair Gets a Clue, Katryn Bury True crime nerd Drew Leclair prides herself on solving local mysteries (even when her zeal gets ahead of her social skills). But when her mom skips town with the school counselor and a new cyberbully at Drew’s school goes on the attack, Drew has her hands full. I loved this sweet middle-grade mystery with a likable protagonist – first in a new series.
Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Camille T. Dungy Dungy has spent years tending and diversifying her garden in Ft. Collins, Colorado – a primarily white community. She writes in beautiful, powerful prose about native plants, community, belonging, parenting (especially during the pandemic), and the ways Black people have contributed (or been prevented from contributing) to gardens in this country. Absolutely fantastic – thoughtful and lovely and incisive. To review for Shelf Awareness (out May 2).
A Courage Undimmed, Stephanie Graves Winter, 1941: Olive Bright has her hands full managing her courier pigeons, her irascible father and her sort-of-real (but is it?) relationship/cover story with Captain Jamie Aldridge. When a seance in the village results in a death, Olive (of course) does some sleuthing. A delightful third mystery in a really fun WWII series.
What You Don’t Know Will Make a Whole New World, Dorothy Lazard Lazard, a longtime Oakland librarian and public historian, tells the story of her childhood in St. Louis, San Francisco and later Oakland: her big, chaotic, loving family; her hunger to learn and find her place in the world; and the challenges and joys of being a young Black woman in the 1970s. Such a compelling slice of American life. To review for Shelf Awareness (out May 16).
The Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich I have such respect for Erdrich’s adult novels, and picked up this middle-grade novel at Verbatim. It follows Omakayas, a young Ojibwe girl, and her family through a cycle of seasons: foraging, fishing, tanning hides, picking berries, wrestling with the presence of white people (and their diseases). It’s sweet, funny and fascinating (with some real heartbreak in the winter chapter). First in a series and so enjoyable.
Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion, K. Tempest Bradford Budding scientist Ruby captures a huge red bug in her yard – but after it escapes (!) and weird things start happening around the neighborhood, she and her friends investigate. I flew through this fresh, smart, funny middle-grade novel (though the bugs did gross me out) and loved Ruby and her crew.
February has been a strange month – I’ve been fighting a weird upper respiratory infection, and the weather has swung from frigid to balmy, with very little snow. Meanwhile, here’s what I have been reading:
The Cuban Heiress, Chanel Cleeton Two women – and the man on whom they both want revenge – board the SS Morro Castle, a pleasure cruise between New York and Havana. Elena is determined to get her daughter back, and Catherine (who’s not really an heiress) is wary of both her fiance and a mysterious jewel thief she meets. I like Cleeton’s historical novels, but this one felt a little thin; I prefer her series about the Perez sisters. To review for Shelf Awareness (out April 11).
Pride & Puppies, Lizzie Shane Dr. Charlotte Rodriguez is swearing off men after dating too many not-Mr.Darcys. She gets an adorable golden retriever puppy, Bingley, and everything is fine – except she might be falling in love with her sweet neighbor, George. Meanwhile, George is head over heels for Charlotte but weighing a possible move back to Colorado (with plenty of unsolicited advice from his sisters). I loved this modern-day Austen-inspired romp with two wonderful main characters (and so much puppy cuteness).
See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, Valarie Kaur I picked up Kaur’s memoir at Yu and Me Books in NYC and was blown away. Kaur tells the story of her childhood in California, her family’s Sikh faith, her experience mourning and documenting hate crimes after 9/11, and her journey into love, healing and activism. She’s a strong writer and an even stronger person. Thought-provoking and compelling.
The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Language and Literature, Katie Holten Holten, an Irish artist and writer, has invented a tree alphabet – and this gorgeous collection of essays, poetry and quotes features each piece in English and in her Trees font. Wide-ranging, thoughtful and an urgent call to preserve and cherish the trees we still have. To review for Shelf Awareness (out April 4).
The Lioness of Boston, Emily Franklin When Isabella Stewart Gardner came to Boston as a newlywed, she struggled to find her place in the rigid, wealthy Brahmin society. After struggling with infertility and losing a young child, she eventually began traveling and buying art – becoming a famous “collector” of both art and people. This novel – elegant, intimate, fascinating – narrates Isabella’s story in first person. I loved it, and it made me want to go back to her museum. To review for Shelf Awareness (out April 11).
The Stories We Tell, Joanna Gaines This book showed up in my Christmas stocking, and I’ve been reading it slowly. I like its emphasis on owning all the parts of your story, though lots of it seemed vague and repetitive. I most enjoyed the parts where Gaines actually shared her personal experiences. Warmhearted, but a mixed bag.
A Murderous Relation, Deanna Raybourn Veronica Speedwell and her colleague, Stoker, are called upon to investigate a scandal possibly connecting a prince to the Whitechapel murders. The case takes them to an exclusive brothel and all over London – including face-to-face with several villains they didn’t expect. A fun entry in this highly entertaining series; I was glad they didn’t dive over-much into the Jack the Ripper cases.
How to Be Brave, Daisy May Johnson Calla North is used to looking after her mother, Elizabeth, who knows a lot about ducks but not much about everyday life details. But when Elizabeth goes on an expedition to the Amazon and Calla is sent to boarding school, she must band together with an unlikely crew of friends (and nuns!) to rescue her mother. A super fun middle-grade adventure with engaging characters.
As we grind our way through winter (I’m trying to embrace it, but grey days and sleet make it hard), I’m taking delight in a newish enjoyment: watching, and identifying, the birds in my neighborhood.
I’ve long loved the sight of a cheery robin redbreast, and the squawks of a bluejay send me to the window to search out that flash of bright cobalt against the bare branches. I adore the cheeky house sparrows who perch on my windowsill, and I like watching the mourning doves who sometimes take up residence there. But lately, I’ve been trying to pay attention to other breeds as well.
I found an Audubon guide at a used bookstore last summer, and I’ve been using it to try and identify a few of the birds I see on my windowsill or on my morning runs: black-capped chickadees, bright goldfinches, the terns who swim in the harbor. The gulls and hawks are easy to spot, but so many of the smaller gray and brown birds (known, apparently, to birders as “LBJs” or “little brown jobs”) require a bit more attention. I’m not always sure I’ve gotten it right, but it’s fun to try and puzzle out the name of a new species.
The other week, on a walk with my friend Sharon, I stopped in Piers Park to watch a flock of birds on the water. We spent a few minutes debating: they were ducks, clearly, but what kind? We squinted in the fading light, studying the white rings on their necks and the little spikes on the backs of their heads. Sharon pulled out her phone, consulted a birding app, and we decided: they were probably red-breasted mergansers.
I get a little thrill from identifying a bird, as Mary Oliver describes in her poem “Bird in the Pepper Tree.” But I get a different, deeper satisfaction from simply watching: noticing, observing, trying to see these birds as separate from my categorization of them. I loved watching the flock of birds bobbing on the water, knowing some of them were mergansers but some might be other species. The snapshot, in my memory, of leaning against the railing with Sharon, watching their black bodies against the waves blue with reflected light, was better than knowing their names.
As Oliver notes, “a name is not a leash” – though it can be, or enhance, a true joy.
What can I say that I have not said before? So I’ll say it again. The leaf has a song in it. Stone is the face of patience. Inside the river there is an unfinishable story and you are somewhere in it and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce but take it also to the forest. The song you heard singing in the leaf when you were a child is singing still. I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four, and the leaf is singing still.
I found Oliver’s collection Swan at the Booksmith this fall, and this first poem stopped me in my tracks, especially the lines about where to take “your busy heart.” As we enter a new year, I am hoping to take my heart to all those places: engaging with the world, noticing and absorbing beauty, and taking time to be in nature and be still.
We are (somehow) halfway through December, and the world feels twinkly and dark and (sometimes) chaotic. Here’s what I have been reading:
Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons, Jeremy Denk I spotted this book at Three Lives this summer, and snagged it at the library recently. Denk charts his journey from piano-nerd kid to classical pianist, via lots of lessons with idiosyncratic, brilliant teachers (and some personal growth). Writing about music can be hard to do, but Denk pulls it off. Entertaining, witty and wonderfully geeky.
Peril in Paris, Rhys Bowen Lady Georgiana Rannoch is thrilled to visit her dear friend Belinda in Paris. But once Georgie gets there, she becomes entangled in both a Chanel fashion show and a mysterious death – which leaves a police inspector convinced she’s a criminal. I love this fun historical mystery series and this was an entertaining entry.
What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest, ed. Susan Wittig Albert, Susan Hanson, Jan Epton Seale and Paula Stallings Yost I stumbled on this collection in an Airbnb in Amherst, and immediately got it from the library when I came home. It’s a stunning anthology of essays and poetry: incisive, moving female perspectives on how we interact with the land, what we take from and give to it, what we leave behind. I loved reading this slowly in the mornings.
Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn Billie, Natalie, Helen and Mary Alice have spent 40 years working as assassins for the Museum, a secret extra-governmental organization. On their retirement cruise, someone targets them, and they work to find out why – and take out their would-be killers. A hilarious, incisive romp showcasing the skills (and ingenuity) of older women.
Maureen, Rachel Joyce I loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which follows a man taking a much-longer-than-planned walk that turns into a journey of self-discovery. 10 years later, this slim novel shares the perspective of Harold’s wife, Maureen. She makes a pilgrimage of her own – which doesn’t go quite as she expected. Lyrical, sad and moving. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Feb. 7, 2023).
Hijab Butch Blues, Lamya H I enjoyed this unusual memoir by a queer Muslim woman exploring all the intersections of her identities. A lot here about Muslim faith and practice; many familiar Bible stories retold as they appear in the Quran; and an honest examination of inner struggle. Heavy at times, and thoughtful. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Feb. 7, 2023).
The Holiday Switch, Tif Marcelo Lila Santos is ready to plunge into the Christmas season (and work all the hours at her local inn’s gift/book shop to save for college). She’s also an anonymous book blogger. When her boss’s nephew, Teddy, shows up to work the holiday season, the two of them clash – but gradually find themselves drawn to one another. A super fun YA holiday romance featuring Filipino-American characters; I also love Marcelo’s adult fiction.
We are nearly halfway through October – and between bike rides, a major work event and daily life, here’s what I have been reading:
Picture in the Sand, Peter Blauner In 2014, a young Egyptian-American man leaves his home suddenly to join a jihadist uprising overseas. His grandfather, Ali Hassan, decides to share his own story with his grandson: his experience working on the movie set of The Ten Commandments and getting swept up in political forces larger than himself. I flew through this – it’s part thriller, part historical epic, part love story, part intergenerational family saga. Fascinating and layered. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Jan. 3, 2023).
Book Lovers, Emily Henry Nora Stephens is not a rom-com heroine: she’s the other woman, the sharp-edged, stiletto-wearing city person who loses the guy. When her sister Libby begs her to go to a tiny North Carolina town, Nora reluctantly agrees – and even begins to enjoy herself. But the presence of a handsome, infuriating editor from the city throws a wrench into Nora’s plans. A fun, sometimes steamy rom-com with plenty of bookish references, but at its heart this is a story about sisters, family, and the stories we tell ourselves.
Seasons: Desert Sketches, Ellen Meloy I picked up this collection at the Desert Museum in Arizona last spring. They’re short, bracing essays (originally recorded for radio) on life in southern Utah: flora, fauna, human community. Meloy is smart and salty and often hilarious. Perfect for morning reading.
The Verifiers, Jane Pek Claudia Lin is loving her new hush-hush job working for an online-dating detective agency. But when a client turns up dead, and it turns out she was impersonating her sister, things get complicated fast. Claudia, like any good amateur sleuth, keeps digging into the case, even after she’s warned off. I loved this smart mystery about choices and expectations (our own, our families’, our potential partners’). Well plotted and I hope the author writes more.
The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights, Kitty Zeldis Brooklyn, 1924: Catherine Berrill is desperate for a child to complete the family she’s started with her kind husband, Stephen. Dressmaker Beatrice Jones, newly arrived from New Orleans with her ward Alice, has a secret that connects her to Catherine’s past. I really enjoyed this twisty historical novel about three different women trying to make their way. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Jan. 3, 2023).
The Vanderbeekers on the Road, Karina Yan Glaser I loooove this warmhearted middle-grade series (and loved meeting Karina in person recently!). The Vanderbeekers (plus assorted animals) pile into a friend’s van for a cross-country road trip. As is often the case with road trips, not everything goes to plan. Sweet and funny, like this whole series.
Take My Hand, Dolen Perkins-Valdez Montgomery, Alabama, 1973: nurse Civil Townsend is working at a women’s clinic purporting to serve poor patients, but she grows concerned about the side effects of birth-control shots (and the necessity of giving them to young girls). A powerful, often heavy, brilliantly told novel about a woman who gets caught up trying to save the lives of the people she’s serving. Highly recommended.
The Woman with the Cure, Lynn Cullen As polio infects thousands of young children, the race for a cure is on. Too-tall Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, obsessed with detecting the virus in the blood, becomes caught up in the science – and the politics – around finding a vaccine. A well-done historical novel (with lots of real-life characters, including Horstmann) about science and feminism and sacrifice. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Feb. 21, 2023).
Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels, Laura Everett Everett, a minister and four-season cyclist, shares what she’s learned about spiritual practice from riding the streets of Boston. Thoughtful, forthright and wryly funny – I loved reading about her journeys around my adopted city. (I haven’t met her yet, but we know a lot of the same bike folks, including my guy.)
cakes, tea and dreams 