I took on too much. Its Spring and life is booming and birth is violent and I should be busy. But I started meditating and it’s profoundly uncomfortable. I worked 13 hour days and cried the moment I sat still. I wrote something that I thought was good and it made me not want to write again. Welcome to April.
It’s highs and lows. Vibrant florals and neon yellow pollen and so much green. It’s rain and mud and nights that still somehow reach freezing temperatures. It’s eyes leaking and noses snotting and the resurgence of my freckles.
“Insert some Emily Dickens quote about Spring here.”
I went to West Virginia.
Overcompensating a feeling of “imposing” or just the general insecurity of being a guest, I brought expensive flowers and wine. On the 4 hour drive, I listened to the audiobook “Cleaving” by Julie Powell. I thought a lot about the butcher shop. The amazement, the blood, the false certainty, and the flirting which are all relevant themes in the book. That’s how I met Mel. He was one of the owners of the shop and the only one I didn’t flirt with and that’s why we’re still friends. I listened to Julie describe her affair and imagined a small framed Amy Adams hulling hind quarters on her shoulders and picking sinew from under her fingernails. I started to smell the sweetness of raw pork in my car.
When I got to his house, Mel gave me a hug and served me a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Instantly, I felt silly and a bit ashamed to not have trusted that I was welcome. That I was visiting from out of town and that he and Emma were happy to host me. That we were friends.
He came with me to an open-mic down the road at the church. He saved our asses in a team game of pool. I played Super Nintendo and roasted s’mores will his family. He made pizza for dinner and I felt my previous anxiety start to muddle away. On the warmest day we went hunting for mushrooms and found premature little wood-ears. Not enough to take home with us but just enough to spot through the trees and yelp “Look!” Enough to revel in the victory of finding a little bit of treasure. Enough to leave behind for the animals.
Kate invited me to breakfast at her parents house the day after I got into town. The rain came the day before and I was finding holes in my dad’s old raincoat. Maura asked her kids if they had experienced anything “weird” again at the hill house. I spread butter on the a freshly baked biscuit and spooned scrambled eggs onto my plate, “Well, there was that two-headed boy,” Kate said. And of course there was. This strangeness is just as prevalent in the holler as the ramps popping up for the first time this season. And once the tulip poplar tree pods are the size of a squirrel’s head, you’ll find morels. And a full moon will rise and the family will meet for breakfast and eat eggs and bacon and talk about the “two headed boy” with the same tenor as the day’s chores. The laundry, the yard work, and the old roommate whose name was called in a dark and empty room.
Kate and I go up to the hill house after breakfast for tea. We talk for hours while sitting on the floor under the tall ceilings and rainy windowpanes. I hear no voices or whispers and feel as I’ve always felt when I come to The New—at home. It’s not just the warmth of the tea or the cozyiness of it all, but witnessing “home” happen around me. I’m not deluded in this regard, I know I am just visiting. I keep to my role as “guest” or “friend from out of town.” But while sitting on the floor with Kate or playing video games with Mel and his kid, I feel lucky to be an observer to their “home.” It’s not the kind of trip where there is site seeing, itineraries, shopping, or restaurants. Just breakfast with Kate’s parents. Scheduled naps, perhaps band practice. Family walks in the woods.
Eventually there’s a break in the rain. Just as the sun starts to peep out of the clouds Kate peels herself off the floor and asks “Do you want to go look for ramps?” My superstar sneakers squelch in the mud and it splatters on my legs. Kate leads me through the backyard and down a small hill and just in-front of us is a small bunch of bright pastel green ramps. This green stand out from the rest and we started seeing the patches of ramps beyond large muddy puddles that are keeping us from picking greedily. We don’t pick any at all. Again, just sit and admire a small treasure of Spring. Running our hands through the leaves to catch whiffs of the dank garlic ramp smell. “Have I ever showed you the graveyard?” Kate stands. We make our way back up the hill and it starts raining again.