When the neighbors visit

I remember how much I have missed making chocolate chip scones for early morning delivery and the sound of children laughing and playing.

Two of the neighbor three children now are now too old for the noise the youngest makes, one of the "three Ms," as her mother called the girls when she introduced me to the two BFFs.

When they leave, the neighborhood is less sparkly and more staid than I like it, but I can look forward to summer, and their happy return.

Into the Woods at Home

Hey Neighbor,

Look what's growing in the woods right behind your house!

I'll keep an eye out for the bloom. I found another closer to my house but someone (i.e., a deer) had already plucked the bud. I'll wander further down the hill tomorrow. Maybe the light will be better then.

Meanwhile, your yard looks fabulous (let me know if want pictures), making me feel, once again, I should apologize for the more natural state of my own. (At least my surviving shrubs will bloom.)

Fondly,
R

A Long Time Coming

Everything conspires to make me revel in the joy of company:

spring

Odonates

Lady's Slippers

and neighbors.

I love them all!

Neighborliness

One neighbor gave me a kick in the pants when I asked what I might plant where the hydrangea and azaleas died. "Just digging out the dead plants would make it look nicer, Robley," she said, and smiled.

Another neighbor suggested dwarf laurels and even told me where to find them.

My across-the-street neighbor offered to do the planting and even cleaned up more of the yard in the process. He also offered excellent advice about maintenance and care.

Today, unlike Blanche duBois, I didn't have to depend upon the kindness of strangers.

I'm All About the 'Hood

Here's what I saw down the street when I got home at just-dark.

Despite what my Virginia-Anglican mother always said -- colored lights are tacky -- I thank my professor-neighbors for bringing light into darkness, joy into the season every year. 

From my porch, I look down, see the glow, and remember the thrill of childhood at Christmas.

As luck would have it

I pulled into my driveway at the one instant sun shone when I too was out.

I am always grateful for my sometime-neighbor, but especially in late fall when her Japanese red maple beats like a heart. 

Thank you, KS: you help beautiful beings grow.

There Goes the Neighborhood

1.
The four-children family moved, taking with them thunks of bats, thwacks of soccer balls, screams of laughter, and bundles of choked-up tears. The house waits for another family, a happy one, I hope. I miss the joyful sounds and children's smiles and springy curls and blueblue eyes.

2.
The oldest building on campus burned last night, leaving many long-term folks jarred and sad. One young woman told me today that a retired professor sobbed so long and hard last night at the news that everyone in the room, even those brand new to the area, cried, too. 

3.

I live here, but I don't suppose I'll ever feel quite at home. I am not one of "them" who have matriculated or taught or worked for the University, but I have taught and I know some of them and like them. 

4.

Our neighborhood loses a bit of goodness with every departure.

Veins

A close friend of my neighbor -- a Mississippian by birth, New Yorker by longest residence, now Tennesseean -- lives only a block from the New Orleans school where I taught for almost two decades and has just published an article about the garden of a country house oustide Nashville.  The wife of the house-owning couple went to summer camp with me.

My neighbor's husband -- a Tennessean by birth, New Yorker by longest residence, and now Tennesseean -- is a book editor, who has been in conversation with a famous photographer about her plans for a memoir about, among other things, her family.  She is my cousin.

Live in the south long enough as my family has -- one side beginning in the mid 17th-century and the other in the early 19th century -- and chances are connections like these are waiting to be seen, like chard veins glowing in morning sun.

Almost magic, like photosynthesis.

Conversation Circle

(Disclaimer: I am cheating: this should have been posted yesterday. I am backdating it.)

My neighbors are extending their garden to include a beautiful new conversation circle. (I blogged about one of the stones the other day, when they were still stacked.) It is a beautiful design, created by a gifted and hard-working landscaper named Curt.

He chose the stones for their size and shape and color, matching them up in the stone yard, and then drove them long-distance to their new home. Then he and his brother prepared the earth, leveled it, poured and packed pebbles, laid the stones out, checked the design, and then secured them in place.

I do not envy my neighbors: I thank them for their generosity. I enjoy their stones, and their conversation, and their wise choice of landscaper.

Serendipity

It's a good day when an orange and yellow butterfly lights on a pot of yellow and orange marigolds at the moment I look up from reading and when that butterfly doesn't fly off before I can go inside, find the camera, come back, and snap several pictures. Later my neighbor calls my name through the living room window and invites me for a drink and then dinner with a companionable group composed of the neighbor and her magazine editor husband and their children, her cousin, a college soccer coach neighbor and his New Orleans-native wife and children, a gentleman studying to become an Episcopal priest, and the college vice-chancellor's wife and her grandson. What delicious company.