Camellia in bloom

I realized the other day that it quite possibly has been four years since I’ve been in Portland in the spring. I’m basing this on the fact that I have never seen the lilac in our front yard bloom, and we put it in when we put in the new stone wall. The small buds on it say that it will be purple; I had asked Rob but he tends to not notice details like flower color. (In case you are wondering why I wouldn’t know what color lilac I planted, it’s because we have a white and a purple in the backyard. This was a volunteer that I transplanted. I didn’t know which color I dug up.) I am astonished by how many things are blooming. There are cherry trees that drip pink blossoms like chenille bedspreads; the other day it looked like it was snowing from the apple blossoms drifting down the street. Red bud limbs are etched in bright purple flowers. I had forgotten what redbuds looked like until I was in Chattanooga last month.

In fact, based on my sense of wonder in Chattanooga, I also am starting to wonder how long it has been since I have seen spring anywhere. The curious thing about traveling a lot is that it is quite possible to miss something as ephemeral as spring. For instance, flowers bloom earlier in Portland than New York. So if one leaves Portland for a gig in NYC before things start blooming in Portland and returns home before things start blooming in NYC then it’s easy to miss most of the blooming. I see parts of it, to be sure. I remember the azaleas starting to come in there. And I remember the daffodils blooming here, but not the lilacs. I keep looking at the one in the front yard every day, waiting for the moment when it is in bloom, not just hinting at color.

The other thing that tips me off that it’s been a while since I’ve seen a spring is the onset of my allergies, which I had sort of forgotten about. Funny, there aren’t so many allergens in Iceland. Actually, Iceland does get an amazing spring, it’s just when most of the rest of the northern hemisphere is experiencing summer. The hillsides turn purple and golden with bloom and tulips last for months.

All of which is to say that though I thought I had remembered that the camellia in the backyard of our house got heavy with pink blossoms in the summer, and that I thought I remembered that it dropped a lot of them on the ground, I had completely forgotten the sheer volume of blossoms. I mean, seriously, look at all of them. And that’s just from the past couple of days. It does this every week. For weeks. I filled two recycling bins with blossoms. Sure, they look pretty now, but they quickly turn to brown slime. One year, I piled them all under the tree, which looked gorgeous, but there’s this little disease called blossom rot which camellias get if their blossoms sit under the tree. What kind of crazy design flaw is that? Which wild animal, exactly, is supposed to cart these away, because I’d like to have one in my backyard in the spring.

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