I was on my way back from teaching this morning, thinking about how much I love leaves. It was one of those moments that made me really happy to have a brain, and particularly grateful and amazed by my life; I was driving home at 11:30 on a Wednesday morning, returning from a job that makes people peaceful and happy, with nothing so totally pressing in my life that I couldn’t take ten minutes to have a little leaf party in my head.
There is something about the leaves here, about the particular shade of green and the way the haze attaches to them on a humid afternoon that makes me melt. The first time I noticed it was on the first hazy, hot day after we moved to Silver Spring. I was was driving up Viers Mill Road toward Rockville, toward a large hill, and there were the trees on the horizon with all their leaves, looking exactly the way trees should look in the summer. It was how summer looked when I first became aware of summer, before we left Baltimore.
In February each year, the leaf watch starts. I notice the branches starting to get darker. I watch the branches every time I go for a walk, and by the second week of March, the little buds start to appear. Late in the month, every branch of every tree looks thicker and more robust, awake. Then April happens, and the leafing starts. I get absurdly excited about this. Scott has come to expect that on every walk and every drive during April, I will start bouncing around, exclaiming “Leafy! Leafy! Look! Leafs! Leafs! Leafs!” every time we pass a branch with even a hint of green on it. By the end of the month, I am doing a lot of bouncing.
Now that it’s June, everything has thoroughly leafed, and the trees are starting to get that summer look about them that makes me fall in love every time I walk outside. All is well.
