April Flowers

     This month I saw flowers in a quantity and variety I never expected to see! Our California son lived up to his name as trail boss and took us on an adventure during a few days of the California “superbloom” – that celebratory wildflower explosion born of the winter rivers of rain.

     Purple and orange painted the embankments beside the freeways as we drove out of Los Angeles toward the desert. At freeway speed, it’s hard to identify flowers beyond the unmistakable orange of California poppies and a guess at purple sage or verbena. Closer to our destination, Borrego Springs, and carpeting the huge surrounding Anza-Borrego Desert Park, a haze of golden-yellow brittle bush stretched as far as the eye could see.

     The desert can look vast and inhospitable from a distance, barren and bleak, and so utterly different from anything familiar. But up close, in the narrow, sandy canyon trails, tiny clumps of two or three small plants often bloomed in the shelter of rocks in the trail – tiny garden patches formed where seeds are protected from footsteps.

     And beyond the trail – so much color – pink from prickly pear cactus flowers, varied yellows and oranges from recognizable flowers like buttercups and desert marigolds, penstemon and mallow, and the whites of desert chicory and pincushion flower. And unfamiliar plants like fairy dusters whose small feathery blossoms look just the right size for a housekeeping sprite, or the strange ocotillo plant – spikey stems seem bare but up close have tiny leaves with tips of bright red blossoms.

     Borrego Springs, normally a place of moderate temperatures in winter, provided a couple of days of 96°! But we stayed at the Hacienda del Sol – a refurbished motel full of bare bones comfort and charm with motel rooms and casitas. (Their motto is “the 1950‘s called and wants their motel back.”) The updates are perfect – heat pumps but old-fashioned radios, internet but no television, Formica tables but wool blankets and hot showers.

     And a great pool to delight the kids in daytime heat. At night we could lower the deck chairs, lie back, and stargaze as we attempted to expand our knowledge of constellations beyond our Alaska familiarity with the Big Dipper. Borrego Springs is an International Dark Sky Community – and for those of us accustomed to winter dark lit always by streetlights and a glow from buildings and the never-dark skies of northern summers – this was a thrill. Lying in the dark under the sky provided a vivid awareness of our place in a vast universe, where we float on our tiny speck full of color and life.

     We returned to the Northwest to plentiful April showers – and the cold and wind of our never-ending winter. But bulbs, shrubs, and trees, like their desert relatives, flower anyway!

December Dark

December Dark

     Dark, yes, but full of holiday lights and music to brighten days!

Back in November I listened to an Internet station, playing classical Christmas music in a constant stream, to conjure up winter cheer while I painted images to become small originals and cards for Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery this month.

     I found inspiration in old photos and old drawings, revisiting moments of festivity in our other houses – the living room in the Anchorage house ready for a solstice tea party back in our day, Lady B’s bedroom with a tiny tree, and crotchety Frances in a peaceful moment in our Port Townsend house. A Christmas letter photo from a friend in England inspired an image of her retriever in the snow by a cottage (changing her brick to red). So many years in the north make snow a part of December for me, though mostly painted snow now.

     All the time I thought a lot about the season – comparing, remembering. These days I am grateful to revisit some of my memories by watching the younger generation, remembering the joys of Christmas past, youthful Christmases with someone special, a velvet dress in the evening, snowy ski days; children full of excitement and anticipation, thrilled by it all; and then, returning college students (no matter that they left immediately to go out with friends), the house alive and cheerful again.

Our young friend came home this weekend from Cambridge, where she is studying this year, and I hope the California family will come next week (last year derailed by ordinary colds, the year before by Covid). Crossed fingers, holiday travel (never easy) is more fraught now for sure, but like Sweet B, I look forward to decorating the tree, making cookies, and most of all reading the books of the season by the fire.

     Sometimes my mind slips ahead to next Christmas – what will that be like? Should I buy a recommended Christmas tree stand that promises to make the job easier than the tree-stand-wrestle of this weekend? Or wait to see what the year brings.

     Best to stay in the moment. I will post these winter images on Instagram (@gilmorekaty) but include this one here – our kitchen corner where a teapot warms the dark. For it is time soon to celebrate the winter solstice and welcome returning light and renewal – a celebration shared by all in the northland.

     I wish you a warm, bright, and healthy season – festive and joyful!

November Days

     Now the thankful week arrives, when we acknowledge how much we have to be grateful for every week. Including this year – disaster averted on Election Day – thank you specially to Generation Z!

On my gratitude list will be opportunities for work I’ve so enjoyed, seizing gift thoughts that float through. In one endeavor, I entertained myself greatly by making postcards for the most recent beginning-reader in the family. Utter nonsense that was so much fun to do. So I subject you to a few of the images and, forgive me, the doggerel. I send these along with Thanksgiving wishes all around!

Here’s to You 2022!

     While getting out the tree decorations this year I found a note I wrote to myself: “I’m putting these decorations away on January 6, 2021, while rioters attack the U.S. Capitol. Where will we be when I unpack them?” The answer I suppose is in the midst of a barely bipartisan investigation and a lot of other woes.

     The tree didn’t get decorated by our California family as hoped – colds (not Covid) felled three members, cancelling travel. In hindsight, maybe a good thing. Omicron increased its presence, an after Christmas snowfall left ice in its wake polished by a stiff north wind, and temperatures fell to a record 17° in the Pacific Northwest.

     Our young friend, her parents, and her visiting university friend from England, salvaged Christmas Eve. The young people decorated the tree (revisiting a long-standing tradition from our young friend’s childhood), and it was interesting to hear the 20-somethings’ take on Covid, feeling lucky because they’d had two years of real college, and feeling sorry for younger students who began their studies on-line.

We missed the California crew, but, backsliding to FaceTime togetherness, opened Christmas presents in the morning and ate Christmas dinner with them. Which is far better than nothing.

Now it is January – and we head into our third pandemic year with mind-boggling crises around every corner – the Covid deaths that now seem unnecessary, the refusal to deal with climate change, and the threats to our democracy.

The other night we watched “Don’t Look Up!” – have you seen it? I laughed – laughed hard – the reactions to impending and certain doom so absurd. And then, of course, the truth of the whole thing hits – how precisely and accurately the movie skewers humankind’s reaction to important events like climate change – or Covid for that matter. The attempts by the heroes are familiar and heartbreaking – the responses chilling. It’s very good and very discouraging.

But it is a new year, and, as my painter friend said recently about the future: “you never know.”

So, here’s hoping for health, accomplishments in your chosen endeavors, and year-long sprinklings of unexpected joy (like revisiting images from the last 10 years – starting the sunbonnet of Lady B – who just turned 10 herself)!

Checking In

     The other day I received an email from a dear reader who wondered, “being a worrier,” about the blog. After 10 years of mostly weekly posts, this has indeed been a long spring break.

     We’ve been to both Alaska and California – exciting to go through the familiar steps of travel – and bliss to see the grandchildren. A long enough visit in California let us settle into a routine with a table full of art supplies and projects, lots of book reading, and much admiring of the changes in Sweet Brother! He’s a whole little person now – walking everywhere, full of fun and strong opinions. We visited the two open museums in Los Angeles, the Sweet Bride made us wonderful meals, and their garden in a California April is paradise.

     And Alaska – one year and five months since we saw Lady B and her brother. I’m thankful for technology for keeping us from seeming strangers, but nothing compares with being together. Lots of hugs, many games of Go Fish (I lose always), Quick Cups (I sometimes win), and Lady B worked with me on my “Illustrating Animals” class homework. Lord B delighted us – funny and smart and so welcoming – he worked on Star Wars Legos with Papa Jim and listened every night to chapters of “The Lord of the Rings.” The Anchorage April landscape brought back memories.  

     I would have written about all this, and books, and excitement about Biden’s attempts to right things, but the Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery offered the opportunity to be featured in August – to do flowers – whatever I wanted.

I plan three big paintings and many more of the blue and white series. In that wonderful way of ideas appearing from nowhere, I also began to think about words from local gardeners about their gardens, to combine with images from my past flower and garden illustration work.

     I passed out a query letter to gardeners on my walks, asked coordinators of P-patches and garden groups to share them, and encouraged all to pass on to gardener friends. The varied responses range from the closely personal to Ann Lovejoy’s, “If you have too many weeds, you don’t have enough plants.” It’s been great fun to receive gardener’s words and choose a suitable image to accompany them. The final products – text and pictures on a backing – look a little like garden book pages.

So, it’s been busy – in a good way for sure! I hope you are well and vaccinated and enjoying this spring and coming summer!

Crowds

     After being a click ‘n shipper for a year, last week I actually visited the post office. Bainbridge sports two post offices, one tiny and the other small. Just one person at a time may enter the tiny post office. But a line forms at the other – six customers and two workers in a small room, sort of spaced out, not really a crowd – but being there made me antsy.

     And made me think about crowds, about how they used to be associated with exciting things: travel, performances, big cities, the Women’s March. How readily we accepted being close to an unknown person – and how long ago that seems.

     And now I wonder what it will be like as things open up, will we ever again be comfortable with crowds? Will we come to a point where crowded moments – the cluster that forms as people wait to disembark the ferry, an airport waiting area, the aisle of a movie theatre after the show, the crush of a rattling, stuffy subway car! – will be normal again?

     What do you most look forward to in our future? I love the very thought of a hug (or maybe a crowded hug) with grandchildren and their parents. Increasing acceptance of public crowds will mark a milestone in our COVID-19 journey – this one toward joy! 

Snow and Sadness

     A walloping snowstorm hit Washington this weekend – eight inches and more of heavy, maybe good for snowmen but lousy for sledding, snow. Gazing out the window, I see the patio table turned into a giant snow cone, St. Francis wearing a pointed shroud, cars, lawns, and streets engulfed. Often impassable sidewalks force pedestrians into the street – trudging through wind driven snow.

     Our power stayed on though, and enabled too much impeachment trial – reliving January 6^th, and learning even more about the former president’s efforts to bring forth his murderous mob. And then we watched as most Republican senators fulfilled the verdict’s foregone conclusion.                  

     Last week was hard in several ways. Lady Cora, beloved and beautiful dog of Downtown Abbey, died after collapsing suddenly in a snowy meadow with Mr. Carson, her favorite person. The vet thinks she probably suffered an aneurysm – one of those out of the blue life enders – a shock to the whole family and a first brush with death for Lord and Lady B. Painful, so painful. Cora was the sweetest dog, ever present. She is sorely missed in a much quieter house.

     Such is my mindset today, I see the snowstorm as just another hardship thrown at people whose paychecks depend on getting to work.

     I write on the weekend, but rain is predicted for Monday and a return to 41° and normal winter. February goes on.

Hads and Haven’t Hads

When my friend who lives here on the island offered a chance to nab a vaccine appointment (momentarily available at Swedish in Seattle), I should have jumped. Instead, I passed. Oh, so cavalier at that point!

For a while I did the coulda, shoulda shaming number, but many people are in a worse position. I am not in a grocery store all day waiting for the mutant virus variant to come shopping, or living in a way that guarantees family sharing of the virus.

For days I kept sorting through the possible vaccine sites, and read last week of the first county clinic on this side of the water. Registration opened at 10 a.m. Monday, and by the time the twirly ball paused at 10:13, the registration page opened to read, “there are no appointments available.”

Then, just as I’d resigned myself to stay part of the “haven’t hads,” a local Instagram friend posted that she’d been vaccinated. Awestruck by her ability to negotiate the system, I inquired and learned of another clinic in nearby Silverdale, where the website announced, “no appointments but check back on Friday.” So I did – occasionally refreshing the page as I did other things. Suddenly, lo and behold, a little past mid-day, a schedule appeared. By the time I nervously signed up my husband and me and dashed next door to tell my neighbors to try, the appointments were gone.

I’m not sure this system should be so confusing, reliant on online access and time, threatened by inequities (like hospital donors getting early vaccine), nor so dependent on luck and chance (a fortunate Oregon few vaccinated while stuck in a snowstorm behind a jackknifed tractor-trailer). But my heart goes out to the people managing this rollout, the same public health workers who have coped with the pandemic for a year. It seems beyond hard to deal with last minute and uncertain vaccine allotments.

I hope, if your phase is open, you have had the shot or have an appointment! “Keep checking back” really does work.

One very happy thing during the endless month of January 2021 – Sweet Brother turned one last week. Only ever having known a pandemic and his whole family home together, he has one upper and two bottom teeth, a definite exploratory nature, and can walk everywhere – including a snowy totter on a birthday adventure!

“Whatever Works”

     A new year, and the same, maybe worsening, pandemic, vaccination hopes grow muddled, the current president still vilely clings to the job he failed to do. And it’s January.

     To change the subject for a minute, did you see The New Yorker interview with Jenna Lyons who was the influential creative leader of J. Crew in its heyday? I’d been thinking about clothes, and wrote down what she had to say about quarantine dressing:

     “Clothes are transformative, and feeling good can be transformative. … But I’m not one to sit in judgement of someone’s choice to wear sweatpants. I wear them, too. And sometimes that’s comfortable. I also really like getting dressed up to walk the dog sometimes, because it makes me feel good. I’m not doing it because I want a parade. I’m fully game to look slovenly, and I’m fully game to get dressed up. Whatever works.”

     At the beginning of December, I realized I’d been wearing the same sweater and jeans or wool yoga pants for weeks – hadn’t even pulled the winter sweaters out of their summertime storage pillowcase. What did it matter? That same sweater combo works, just the right amount of warm (a bigger sweater over top when needed), but it is deadly boring. In the interview Lyons says nobody sees anything but your shoulders these days, and it’s true, specially here where we swaddle raingear over warm layers – and wear masks.

     The day after the trip to Seattle, our next-door neighbor asked where I’d gone, “all gussied up.” That comment revealed how low is the bar – my neighbor being accustomed to my morning walk outfit, which varies only by a jacket selection that depends on whether no rain, light rain, heavy rain, or cold rain. Or maybe she compared to my “walk carefully on mossy driveway across to the mailbox” ensemble – several layers of sweaters (one very ratty) clutched around myself, with garden clogs completing the look.

     How about you? Do you wear the same functional lockdown clothes? Do you miss seeing people’s clothes at all? (I try to glimpse my daughters-in-law on calls with the grandchildren.) Clothes can delight. For Christmas, I loved it that the Alaskans gave me Elizabeth Holmes’s “HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style” (Elizabeth, Diana, Kate, and Meghan and their clothes). I like to read Vanessa Friedman’s newsletter from the New York Times on Friday, and yes, in the face of other More Important Things, complaints about the discussion of clothes are valid.

But it’s OK to please ourselves – to see something different in the mirror or the Zoom square. Clothes ignored for nearly a year (no special occasions being on offer) – nicer sweaters, ironed blouses, a skirt(!) might provide variety.  

     And at least one person in my orbit has no difficulty changing it up in myriad ways!

Let it Snow!

     That would be a rare December event in Washington, but snow comes in other forms. Last week I moved a large painting to hang years of our cards pinned to ribbons – homemade and very imperfect. They trace decades with images of houses, children, pets, hikes, travels, and Christmas joys.

     And now two more rows – cards from our sons’ families fill out the wall, and those reduced me to tears, never far away these days. Not just for missing my family but for all the pain in the nation. (I’m with Bernie Sanders in his support for both direct payments to people, unemployment relief, and help to state and local governments. Now.)

Something slow motion haunts this month for me – time unstructured by longstanding traditions – years of going to Alaska in the early part of the month for real snow, and then later, the Californians coming. But not this COVID year.

     The Christmas cards arrive though, maybe earlier than usual – the first one in October. I welcome hearing from faraway friends and love to see the holiday images on their cards – often including snow. One year I managed that on our card.

     My drawing was made up, but this year Mrs. Hughes sent a real photo deserving “best of snow scenes,” showing the house she festooned with many white lights along the eves, glowing against bluish snow on rooftops and trees. With a lighted garland draping the snowy fence, the old red house has never looked better!

     Talking to Lady B about snow a couple of weeks ago, I reminded her (I can still do this with Lady B, her father cringes when I start in on a memory of his childhood) of the time we sat in her dining nook staring out the window and calling out for snow – and then watched amazed as solitary flakes begin to fall. The conversation moved on, but she began to draw and made the most wonderful image:

My old friend reads to her grandsons on FaceTime and inspired me to try. It’s not the same – awkward to hold the phone to show the image and still read the page – not like a real cuddle by the Christmas tree with books. But needs must, and as Sweet B said: “I love to read these books – again and again.” A benefit to reading electronically is the chance for a one-on-one conversation on the side.

     Like the cards, many of the best holiday books feature snow scenes, specially falling snow. We’ve already read “Santa’s Snow Cat” several times, a beautifully illustrated tale of Santa’s white cat who falls from the sleigh through swirling snow. (It ends happily.)

     Sweet B suggested some ways to do it, when we talked about the difficulty of painting snow scenes, promised she would try when we hung up. Then I remembered that she already painted a snow scene with her dad when they made the beloved mural on our garage wall this summer:

 And we opened a card from young friends with a terrific photo of their so cute, ruddy-cheeked toddler in a snow suit and a message inside:

“For every dark night, there is a brighter day.”

Wish with Your Heart

   One evening last week, as they began to decorate their tree, the Californians called us on FaceTime. It’s strange to watch without being part – like viewing a familiar movie – but also jolly. An excited Sweet B unpacked the boxes we sent one ornament at a time – an ordinary family assortment, many homemade – some have stories, and some are good for making up new stories.

A small slab of painted dough, tentatively identified as an owl, is a figure of awe – a creation surviving some 30 or 40 years! To see the son who probably made that owl, lifting his five-year-old to place the star, is weirdly like watching life go on without you.

In the middle of the decorating, I told Sweet B I wished we could be together to decorate our tree. She paused a moment, then said: “I know what we’ll do – you close your eyes and wish with your heart!” FaceTime might be more reliable, but we’ll make it work. I want to embrace this holiday, be grateful for the odd and the familiar.

     And last week it began to sink in that a possible end to this pandemic exists – reading the New York Times’s timeline for vaccine dispersal, and hearing Dr. Fauci explain why the vaccines are both speedy and safe – I could feel spirits lift! Hope! Sacrificing togetherness, trading closeness this year for more years to come seems a worthy endeavor.

     But, before the vaccine, a bleakness confronts us this winter – hospitals nearing capacity necessitates a new round of closures – the outlook on all fronts is awful. We could close our eyes and wish with our hearts, and I’d wish for those who disregard science to open their eyes – and open their hearts to the suffering of patients and medical people. What a muck we’ve made of this. What a triumph we’ve handed the virus.

     To end on a positive note – back to the children and their holidays, both those in our lives and others, it seems a great year to up the support in all forms. I enjoyed getting things for Toys for Tots, in operation since 1947 and accepting donations until 18 December at drop off spots around our towns, or you can do it virtually. Books, art supplies, games, there is no specific list.

Ensure a little joy. This we can do.

Our COVID December Begins

In the days before Thanksgiving, I watched a crew of volunteers erect a donated, 30-foot Christmas tree on the Winslow Green – a perfect fir, slim structural triangle, branches reaching up at balanced intervals, festooned with round red glass balls, and topped with a star. My heart soared at the sight.

At first, I thought, well that will do, that can be our Christmas tree, but on my walk the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I passed a woman stringing little white lights on three wire deer, awash in glitter, browsing under a patch of white-barked birch trees. When I said her display made me happy, she replied, “Well, I’ve been into this since the day after Halloween – there is more to come!”

She got her indoor tree from a local farm, and by the time I got home I knew we’d follow suit. Saturday being Small Business Saturday, supporting a local farm seemed appropriate, and at the farm – a rainy, but cheery place – big wreaths filled the arms of little children and big trees topped the cars of their parents.

The Los Angeles family is having a first Christmas in their own house, and last week I made a skirt for their tree and a stocking for Sweet Brother. I divided our stash of cookie cutters, stockings, tree decorations, and Christmas books in half, and packed their portion into three boxes to mail south. The boxes arrived on Saturday, and, by a chance video call, I watched the unpacking of one to fetch out a tiny string of lights for Sweet B’s doll house. Then, some hours later, a photo arrived of Sweet B in mask standing by her chosen tree on a Los Angeles tree lot.

By midday a photo pinged from Alaska – Lady B and Lord B standing (masked, and together holding a wreath), transfixed by some sight – maybe the fresh cutting and wrapping of their tree for the ride home? And later came a photo of their tree – gloriously lit and decorated. A snowy owl nestled at the top.

(The photos are treasured – thank you smart phones, thank you parents – they do help fill the void.)

That Saturday I also walked in town with my old friend – it’s fun to walk in town with her, because she knows many people and greetings are so friendly. But this day, I suppose because Governor Inslee lives on the island, a loud and obnoxious cabal of anti-mask protesters, walked off the ferry and onto Winslow Way with bullhorn and police siren, shouting that Bainbridge Islanders were brainwashed and masks were unconstitutional.

But never mind. (I did think of Lady B – one of her gratefuls at Thanksgiving dinner was for “those little pieces of cloth that keep the virus from spreading” – sensible child).  It’s better to think about family trees blinking alight along the coast from Southern California to Alaska.

Do you think it might be questionable for two grownups to have a tree since neither family from afar, nor local friends can visit? But to do without that welcome presence seems sad when there is already so much sad. Trees stir happy memories for sure – and memories are not locked down this year – so I’m eager for the tree’s festive light and color!

Thanksgiving in the Year of COVID-19

     Traditionally we split holidays with the Alaska grandparents. We do Thanksgiving, so this week would ordinarily bring feverish grocery shopping, planning and cooking for meals beyond turkey day, bed making, toy arranging, and ferry schedule coordinating. I love arrivals – that blissful moment of sighting one family or the other in the festive crowd disembarking the ferry – I’ll miss that.

     And the little moments, when easy companionship happens amid holiday bustle, will be absent this year – making pies or reading books with children, a chance for an extra walk at evening with a willing son, laughing with Sweet B’s parents while wrestling the bird and trimmings, Mr. Carson arriving with a platter of colorful roasted vegetables, and last year, a poolside chat with Mrs. Hughes while kids squealed in the water. This distanced holiday provides no opportunity to plop down and annoy a visiting grownup child sitting quietly by the fire with his book. And the isolation of 2020 presents a real void when the video call ends, and the rest of the weekend looms.

     But I think we can make that call and meal together celebratory – if not like the old days. As my old friend, who lives here and is a psychologist, would say I’ve been “somewhat directive” (seems a polite and professional term for bossy) – asking that the Zoom meeting be set up, suggesting maybe we could do vegan meals, sending boxes north and south to the grandchildren that contained possible table decorations (shopping in my linen drawers and realizing the chances were slim of 16 people at a big table again), candles (can you have a candlelit meal on Zoom?), and paperwhite bulbs for December.

I loved the N.Y. Times’s Style Editor, Vanessa Friedman’s, recent Open Thread Newsletter. She intends to dress up for the electronic event, and writes: “When the news around us gets worse and worse, dressing is a way to use the external to find a note of grace for the internal. That’s worth a bit of celebration.”

 The “thankfuls” of the children around the table are always the best, and I’m curious to see what they make of this year. Sweet Brother won’t speak out, but his birth at top of mind. The young parents always warm my heart with their love for each other and their children. I’m hoping for a better performance than in the past, when I have mostly grown tearful and inarticulate. When the video goes dark, I’ll be glad the families are cozy together in their foursomes. And from this reimagined Thanksgiving, we get safety and the hope that next year we will be together again. Not small things.

     And there is still much to be grateful for – health, those connection-saving video platforms(!), vaccines coming, state officials standing up to the president’s despicable attack on democracy, and a new administration!

And I add a heartfelt thank you dear readers. I have much gratitude for all of you – your comments and caring keep me going. I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving in this temporary incarnation!

Dreams Really Do Come True – Maybe

     Now we cross fingers and hold our breath. Today’s the day – or today and the next while.

     But the first COVID Halloween happened successfully – adaptations and resilience all around from kids and parents. Some things were just as they’ve always been – Dorothy posed in her red shoes with Toto in basket, the Cowardly Lion stood bravely (and at just nine months, that’s a feat!), a Yeti stalked the streets (a perfect costume for a frigid Alaska All Hallow’s Eve), and a Skeleton Warrior (not just an ordinary skeleton) armed himself with a plastic pumpkin).

     Good luck to us all – specially for these four and their cohort whose future on a functioning planet is at stake!

 

Blackberries

Forty years ago, when I first looked for property here, a patient realtor drove me around. Sometimes we’d stop and graze on blackberries in brambly thickets, warmed by the sun and tart, bits of wildness on a cultivated island.

Blackberries grow in bunches, a couple ready to pick, alongside others still red or pink – food for another day. Sequential ripening benefits scavengers of all kinds. On the bluff, shaded by huge firs they never fruited, but only stretched thick, aggressive canes armed with sharp thorns, over the salal onto the driveway.

Wild blackberries are often deemed thuggish interlopers, best controlled by goats. But in this summer of our discontent, I see them as a gift. On the big street near us, passersby stop to pick from a hedge thick with berries, deep purple stains the sidewalk below. One morning, when I asked what she’d do with them, a woman gathering blackberries along a quiet street said muffins – and to freeze and eat in the winter. She recommended a handful on the top of sweet lemon cake. My neighbor and another friend make freezer jam – and inspired me to try.

On a commuter path nearby, blackberry vines entwine themselves in the lowdown branches of a young cedar. I passed that patch repeatedly before noticing a dark spot, then another. The cedar boughs protect a little from the sharp barbs of prickles snagging clothing and skin.

The construction behind us (thankfully paused since early summer) destroyed giant tangles of berry bushes, but a thick patch remains – alive with birdsong all spring. North facing, those berries have been slow, but now, encouraged by weeks of warm sunny weather and one downpour rain day, they ripen.

Sweet B quickly learned to discern ripeness by a gentle tug, and with her parents gathered berries for pie from the hedgerow in our little neighborhood. On her dad’s shoulders, she reached high up, where dark clusters dangle, and her mom topped our blackberry pies with crusts of woven lattice.

It was summer.