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As soon as spring is in the air Mr. Krippendorf and I begin an antiphonal chorus, like two frogs in neighboring ponds: What have you in bloom, I ask, and he answers from Ohio that there are hellebores in the woods, and crocuses and snowdrops and winter aconite. Then I tell him that in North Carolina the early daffodils are out but that the aconites are gone and the crocuses past their best..”

—Elizabeth Lawrence, The Little Bulbs

The photo is not of my garden; this lovely sight of a neighbor’s front yard left me breathless last April. I haven’t been down that street lately to see what may be in bloom, but the daisies and poppies are coming up in other yards around town. My own poppies are all leaf, not quite ready to set buds yet. But soon. And some of these small daisies have popped up quite unexpectedly in a large planter by my front steps, along with some adorable johnny-jumpups. Either they jumped up indeed, right into the pot, or it’s possible Rilla planted some seeds…she’s always finding an old half-full packet in a drawer somewhere (why do I only ever plant half the seeds in a packet?) and taking it upon herself to do a bit of Mary Lennoxing. Today it was freesia seeds, inherited from a friend, and some sweet peas and sweet william. I grow freesia from bulbs, not seed, so I’m eager to see if these come up. It’s turning wonderland out there, already…the lavender has gone supersized this year, the bees are quite drunk.

It’s the season when I have no choice, I must read gardening books. The Little Bulbs is mandatory at this time of year, when the freesia are tumbling everywhere. I could live on the scent of freesia. This bit to Miss Lawrence from her horticultural pen-pal, Mr. Krippendorf, one February day, made me laugh:

“I was surprised to hear of the paucity of bloom in your garden, as I once read a book by an Elizabeth Lawrence who listed quantities of plants that bloomed in February or even January in her garden (which she alleged was in Raleigh, North Carolina). We have quite a few snowdrops now, and some eranthis, in spite of the fact that the pool on the terrace freezes every night.” And later: “I have your letter dated Fourth Sunday in Lent but not mailed until Tuesday. You say you might as well have lived in Ohio this winter—that sounds almost scornful. Yesterday was a wonderful day, not too warm, and sunshine off and on. I have tens of thousands of winter aconites in the woods—bold groups repeating themselves into the distance, also the spring snowflakes, and Adonis amurensis.”

All this sudden color is the result of the few days of rain we had the other week, after a crispy, crackling, waterless winter. And I know so many of you in other parts of the U.S. have had a really dreadful time of it these past few months. I wouldn’t dare to ask Miss Lawrence’s question, above, but I’m starting to see hints on Facebook and Twitter of a crocus here, a narcissus there, and Mr. Krippendorf’s tens of thousands of winter aconites gave me courage.

***

Read today:

Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (ahhh, deep delight)
Grace for President
Here Comes Destructosaurus (coming out soon, quite funny, wonderful Jeremy Tankard art)

Finished Where Angels Fear to Tread. Forster is tearing me up, lately. I had to read Howards End because of the Susan Hill book, and it wrung me inside out, and Angels hung me out to dry. In a good way, you understand.

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There’s never any knowing—(how am I to put it?)—which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won’t have things hanging on it for ever.

—E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread

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Among the returning motifs in our memoir class is the idea of beauty in language—rhythm, pattern, song.  It's not easily classifiable stuff.  We come toward it each with our own idiosyncratic preferences, our mysterious politics.  Name your beauty, and I shall name mine.  Instruct me and I will teach you; I will show you what I mean; I will hearken and hold.

Toward the final pages of E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, a series of lectures delivered in 1927, the great novelist says this:

Music, though it does not employ human beings, though it is governed by intricate laws, nevertheless does offer in its final expression a type of beauty which fiction might achieve in its own way.  Expansion.  That is the idea the novelist must cling to.  Not completion.  Not rounding off but opening out.  When the symphony is over we feel that the notes and tunes composing it have been liberated, they have found in the rhythm of the whole their individual freedom.  Cannot the novel be like that?

Forster writes of the novel, and I teach memoir, but there are lessons here, of course, just as there are lessons on every page we read.  We are honing our idea of good.  We are turning away from that which flattens our curiosity, our desire to know. 

This morning I was looking at the first pages of two award-winning debut young adult novels.  One teased and seduced me; it opened a world.  The varied shape and length of its sentences installed, within me, a mood, while its repeated words and sounds felt considered, not convenient.  The other opening page crunched as I read it; it stuttered.  Through a series of noun-verb, noun-verb declarations, it directed me to know and did not give me room to feel.  Both books, as I have noted, gained the adoration of judging panels.  Both have been widely read.  I wonder how these two examples work upon you? Which is the book you'd like to read?  Which is the one you feel you'd learn from?

Example 1:  By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat.  We arose in the dark, hours before sunrise, when there was barely a smudge of indigo along the eastern sky and the rest of the horizon was still pure pitch.  We lit our kerosene lamps and carried them before us in the dark like our own tiny waving suns.  There was a full day's work to be done before noon, when the deadly heat drove everyone back into our big shuttered house and we lay in the dim high-ceilinged rooms like sweating victims.  Mother's usual summer remedy of sprinkling the sheets with refreshing cologne lasted only a minute.  At three o'clock in the afternoon, when it was time to get up again, the temperature was still killing.

Example 2:  Nailer clambered through a service duct, tugging at copper wire and yanking it free.  Ancient asbestos fibers and mouse grit puffed up around him as the wire tore loose.  He scrambled deeper into the duct, jerking more wire from its aluminum staples.  The staples pinged about the cramped metal passage like coins offered to the Scavenge God, and Nailer felt after them eagerly, hunting for their dull gleam and collecting them in a leather bag he kept at his waist.  He yanked again at the wiring.  A meter's worth of precious copper tore loose in his hands and dust clouds enveloped him.