Something About the Morning
So I woke up in my normal tired, cranky, puffy-eyed, “Why do I have to go to work for a living?” mood at 5:30 AM this morning. Like always. But then, some time after we went outside and some time before I got to work, my mood brightened to a noticeable extent. Why? I have my suspicions. I think it was the sun. Because it felt like spring, all of a sudden. Or, like spring time will definitely come soon, despite whatever the groundhog might have said.
Probably it was because the sun’s moved (well, we’ve moved, actually, but you know) enough to shine on things in a different way – a way that reminds me of spring.
And maybe it was because the plants and buds about to emerge are emitting a smell that I can pick up with the back of my mind/outside edge of my nose.
Even though it was 43 degrees this morning, Houston’s purple trees were not only in bloom, but already dropping petals. Certain people in the Heights and the Montrose have these shockingly beautiful trees in their yards – I don’t know what they’re called. They’re about ten to fifteen feet tall, their branches form round shapes like elongated oak heads, and, in February, those leafless branches are filled with what look like big lavender lotuses. All over. So fabulous. So that, when you go around a corner and suddenly see one there, especially in front of a white wall, you feel like crying and you no longer believe that the plants in medieval tapestries were completely made up. (The kumquat trees make me feel the same way, actually.)
One of the best things about being back in Houston after ten years in Austin is the increased variety of plants for me to look at. But I don’t know the names of anything anymore. In Austin, I knew every plant because there were so few and I had time to study xeriscaping books all the time. Here, today, I know nothing, especially now that I live in an apartment and don’t have a garden.
I miss gardening.
If you know what these purple-flowered trees are, please tell me.
I’m glad the sun’s doing whatever it did.
