Wildflowers

Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin

  Spring has come late to the mid-Atlantic.  I say   this only because those who have been here a while say so.  They say the snow that fell the week before Easter, the forsythia that bloomed a month past the expected yellow fire was due, the delay of the cherry blossoms, all of this is not normal.  What I know is that this long awaited spring exposes a rift in my heart.  I am excited to learn about this new season in my new world, and I miss - with breathtaking depth - the spring in California.

northern watersnake

This week on Wednesday, Dwight filled in for me on childcare duty and I went on a guided wildflower walk.  It was a welcome gift that allowed me to get outdoors with like-minded grownups to see what grows on the forest floor in early spring before the trees leaf out.  I packed my binoculars and my loupe, but my wildflower identification book is for the western United States, so I left it home.  We met at a park on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, a place our guide, Stephanie, told us would be awash in wildflowers.  She was right about that and about so many other things we marveled at on that day.  Stephanie is someone I have taken several walks with, and who impresses everyone not only with her knowledge but with her ability to share it well.  Her love of this landscape is something I can hear in her voice as she points out a tree, and see in her body as she bends to examine a butterfly.  Although I do not yet know this place well enough to love it, I understand her love for it.  It is the same love I have for the Valley Oaks, for the red shafted flicker, and for the rush of melted snow coming down from the Sierra Nevada.

An expanse of Virginia Bluebells

If geography and place shape us, and I believe they do, how do wildflowers contribute to that process?  How does the struggle between native flowers and non-native invasive species speak to what I'm doing here?  How is it, in this crazy weather, we were able to find so many true ephemerals at just the right time when our walk was scheduled months ago?  What does it mean when a band of flowers a hundred yards long elicits amazement from my fellow walkers, when what I am looking for is the scale of the west, the vistas of flower covered hillsides with no boundaries other than the horizon?  Already I appreciate - truly - the beauty and uniqueness of this new home.  When will I fall in love with it?

Here are some of the delights we saw that day: 

Virginia Bluebells

Spring Beauties

    

Dutchman's Breeches

Bloodroot

                          

Trout Lily

Trillium

                            


 These and so many more!  It was an eye-opening, heart-expanding walk into a flower land I had never seen before.  By the end of the day I knew that while I still have most of my two feet in the California poppies and lupines, at least one toe is here, in the Virginia Bluebells.

Sigh . . .