Jasper knelt down on the driveway and swept up two fistfuls of fallen crabapple petals with his hands. “This is joy!” he said, and threw them in the air.
He’d just written and read his first word on the sidewalk, in chalk: Bad. Soccer practice hadn’t quite tired him out. His Burgundy Bears beat the Mellow Yellow’s by one goal. Jasper got an assist.
Simon had his first ice cream this past weekend. Maple walnut. He approved. The Monk will be 1 on June 15.
I’m mourning the end of lilac season, but am looking forward to reliving it, as I do every spring. Jasper and I fly to PEI Friday to open Walden and Plover Dunes. The lilacs there are just starting.
This year Jasper and I are going to cut a path through the woods to the spring at the top of the hill. There’s still a half bottle of red wine at its source, left from when Melanie and I decided in June ’95 that we’d build a cabin and a life after not really dating through high school ten years earlier. The wine was bad. We should have taken it as a sign.
There’s a lot to do to open cottages for renters, but it can be fun. I like how Gary my painter laughs every April when I call about touch-ups or a coat of white on the bath house windows and say, “Happy New Year!”
It’s ten years now since family gathered on my clearcut to plant trees. That was before I knew I didn’t have to work to make things beautiful, or experience joy.
