One of my favorite things about Montreal:the harbinger of spring here for me is a yard made of gorgeous blue flowers.I have no idea what they are, but they seem to be a perennial ground cover for some of the lawns on campus.The temperatures only barely became spring-like a week or two ago, and those brave little flowers have popped up on little hillsides, bright and bold as can be.While tree leaves are still slowly, slowly forming their buds, shyly waiting for that first truly warm weekend to burst forth with some tiny yellow-green baby leaves, these fabulous little flowers are showing us all they’ve got, just as soon as they can.And it’s only April!In Montreal!I love these flowers.
Does anyone know what these are?I need some in my future yard.They are gorgeous in April, and then just just blend in with the grass for the rest of the growing season.
Being fairly frazzled from a few years’ living in the city, and inspired by my own experience of writing about the mountain for my blog, I did a somewhat spontaneous, but totally satisfying thing: I went there. Other wooded places are helpful, but I knew that only this one place would get me what I needed. Only on the mountain would I hear the wind in the trees like I needed to hear, to see the open views of the neighboring hills from that spot in the field. The day was sunny, above freezing, and the air was promising of spring. It was time.
Now, I knew there were new owners. I had never met them. I had heard there was a new, year-round house in the place of the old farmhouse. I knew no other family would love our “Little Camp” as much as we had. I knew I never would have been ready to go there until now. But, there I was. I rang the doorbell and met the new owner. A friendly guy, who happens to obviously appreciate the land and its history as much as I do. He walked with me from his new house, up the hill, to the Little Camp, where my family and I had always stayed. My favorite apple trees are still there. He told me they are still producing apples every year. The Little Camp is standing although, as I had been prepared for, disheveled. But proud. Some of our old stuff was still in its cupboards, and I gathered up my brother’s and my old berry-picking pails. If no one loves it now, I had to take what I could, including pictures. How many gorgeous hours did I spend sitting in those fields, humming songs, thinking, plucking and (mostly) gobbling up those wild strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. The berry season ended always gloriously with the ripening of the apples in the fall. After June began, there was never a weekend without some sweet treat to hunt for. We would pick berries for mom’s breakfast on Mother’s Day, and give her breakfast in bed with fresh berries on her cereal. We were very thoughtful children. J
I captured pictures of all the old things that were still the same, things I remembered so clearly. I gathered it all up again, seen by my eyes for the first time in my adult life. Most importantly, almost none of my favorite things had changed. The landscape was the same, the fields the same, the older familiar pines surrounding the yards were still there, although twice as tall as I remember them. One big thing: the Little Camp was SO much smaller than I remembered. I suppose I’ve grown a few inches since I was 14.
There was surprisingly comfortable conversation between the new owner and I, considering that I had shown up unannounced on a Monday afternoon, hoping to tromp all over his land and take photos.
There is so much more to tell and a thousand different ways to say it, but it will take me a while to absorb it all. My overall feeling from the visit: satisfaction. Like revisiting my own subconscious, if you can imagine. It was as if the place remembered me. And how wonderful to know that it had been here all along, changing too, but with the heart still in it. A lot like me. My favorite place in the world is doing OK, and I have the photos to prove it! He invited me to visit again in the summer, when things are green, and I’m thinking it’s pretty likely I could find the time to go back…
