It’s almost Thanksgiving – and I’m bringing the flowers to the feast.  I decided I had better practice with the vintage bean pot I bought for the arrangement.  I don’t want my flowers to look like “loving hands at home.”  (That’s a way of saying “bless your heart” about homemade dresses and floral arrangements.)

So this is a trial run, composed of flowers I know Trader Joe will have on hand this week.  I’m no florist, but I think it turned out pretty good.  Now on Tuesday, I’ll buy fresh stems to take for my hostess on Thanksgiving in their own pretty arrangement – and these will stay home with me in another vase.

Mums and roses – simple and beautiful enough for even me to fill up a big ole bean pot and say, “I’m thankful.”

Now, my dears, it’s late and I am going to be dozing off in just the twinkling of an eye.

But I’ll tell you, it was like magic to walk down the pathway to my plot and realize the spires of color standing in rows were my very own snapdragons – and it was a darn good thing I brought two buckets.

And that’s a sweet dream for us all, on this rainy summer night.

The thing is that if you plant all the snapdragons and lisianthus starts on the same day – they are going to be ready to harvest at just about the same time. It’s not something you can expect a lot of sympathy about. “Oh no! You have two buckets bursting with flowers? How will you cope, poor thing!” Said no one, ever.

If you wanted to come over now, I would let you. For one thing, there are flower arrangements everywhere – so it looks like a really special person lives here, to deserve so many flowers. Also most of the moving boxes are unpacked, and I can live with what you might think about the ones that are still standing in the corner of the dining room. Plus my brand new vacuum fluffed the carpet to a luxurious soft velour – so you would understand completely when I made you take off your shoes.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix up this place – that’s just the reality of my budget and my age and my minimal level of homeowner competence. But as long as Everything Has A Place – and Everything is in Its Place, then the sofa and love seat will hold us, and the table will serve us and the kitchen will provide coffee and cookies as needed. The only missing necessity is you.

The lisianthus and the snapdragons were all blooming today, and I scooped up as many as I could, along with a few patio petunias that I cut back hoping to encourage some new buds. I spent $150 on these seedlings, and I am not sorry at all.  If I hadn’t splurged, I’m not sure I’d have any flowers at all.  The heavy rain drowned all the seeds I planted, except the calendula for some reason, and the starts I sprouted indoors have not fared too well in the soggy soil. Slugs and bunnies – take your pick – had their feast on the tender leaves before the roots could catch up and fight back. Ah well – circle of life, you know.

Anyway, I don’t mean to complain! This is so damn pretty, even if I do say so myself.

Every season can be nostalgic – but summer is most nostalgic to me.  She rolls unchanged through much of childhood – the pool opens, the fireflies arrive, the mosquitos feast on our bare legs and toes.  We are older so we do older things, that’s true.  But there are no report cards, unless you count the summer loves and new driver’s licenses.  And even today, you have only to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows, and soon the house will settle into a warm, expectant stillness, punctuated by a brief breeze or birdsong, exactly as it would have when you were much, much younger, waiting for summer things to happen.

One – and only one – corn flower volunteered this year, and its color is ravishing.  By contrast, the cosmos flung their seeds quite vigorously, and have sprouted literally everywhere except within my plot.  I dug a few feathery green volunteers out from the wood chip paths and transplanted them into the cosmo row.  Others are inveigling their spots right on the edge of my neighbor’s plots – where they are being tolerated so far.  I’m not sure these neighbors understand that a cosmo quickly becomes as woody and thick as a small shrub.  And I’m not going to spoil the surprise.

I didn’t have the nerve to help myself to the peonies from the planter around the defunct fountain just beyond my patio door.  They were lush and pink and admired by a few passersby.  It was a good year for peonies here, with all the rain we’ve had, and probably no one would have noticed.  I held back, though, until today when I knew no one would notice if I took the last two fading blooms.  I love this part of their story – how they reveal the inner workings that beckon bees and ripen seeds.

There are strawberries and clustered bellflower (campanula glomerata) at the garden, and some kind of viburnum and willow and the mulberry creeping in where you really should expect it.  It’s renewed my goal of installing some perennials in my plot. The volunteer dill and naturalized shallots are filling in a few spots while I wait for the annual burst of zinnias and cosmos to gather momentum  – but if I had some peonies of my own, I wouldn’t have to sneak around.

Renee and Pam and I grew up in Chicago, a few years apart, and even though we never met when we lived there,  if you know Chicagoans, that’s really enough to make you cousins.  But it so happens Renee actually is my second cousin on my Dad’s side.  We agreed without any discussion to just be cousins.  There are enough complications in our genealogy without keeping track of how many times removed we are.

Renee’s two story brick house in Madison would fit comfortably on Belle Plaine Avenue, with its flight of cement steps and front porch that spans the full width of the 1920s facade. She lives in one of the only neighborhoods in Madison that has a working alley – a defining feature of every Chicago neighborhood.  The kitchen table looks out over a brief yard,  a fence and an alley – just like it should.  When we sit at that table, drinking strong coffee and agreeing about politics, I feel right at home.

The peonies in the front yard are urban dwellers, too – growing in a pragmatic swath along the property line, easily enjoyed by either neighbor.  Renee didn’t blink when I asked if I could cut some.  “I’ve got something you can put them in,” she said right away.  “Wait – I have my bucket in the car and my snips – I’m prepared!”  I said.  “Take some columbine, too, if you want,” she told me when I came back outside with my reused one-litre soda bottle full of water.  I left with the perfect number of peonies and a thrifted side table to try on my new patio.

(The iris sneaked in from the community garden, a perfect companion for columbine and peonies.)

The last big thing is over.  As of May 2, I have a zig-zag scar framing my forehead and eyebrow to remember my Mohs procedure by.  The countdown goes in a positive direction from here on – two weeks til the surface stitches dissolve, and I can stop covering half my head with tape and gauze.  Three months until the underlying sutures are completely gone, their job fully done.  One year until the skin settles back to normal and the raised line recedes into something less noticeable.  All completely normal and utterly miraculous.

I’m not sure how to make room for my gardening life in my new place.  There’s a lot of carpet here – even in the bathroom.  Growing seedlings and schlepping flowers involves spilling dirt and splashing water.  That presents a challenge for keeping the carpet clean.

But it’s a nice problem to have.  And meanwhile:  Tulips and crabapple branches.

There’s no question that the first tulips of the year in the first window light of a new home are for my sweet April loves, Barbara and Patsy, presented by in the old Delftware pitcher saved by Grace, and finding sunshine between the raindrops.

With spring always in your hearts, dear birthday girls – sending lots and lots of love!

Well, there are tales to tell – another night.

How the cherry branches came to flutter around the window, the snow that favored us with a visit to celebrate the mercurial skies of April, and where our new window will be.  It’s more than enough for one night’s work and I need to reserve some energy for packing and doing dishes and packing some more.

But I didn’t miss our birthdays, darling.  This bounty is for us – brought home as budding twigs, ready to take a little warmth and turn it into Spring.  Nothing more is needed – just the light, the warmth, and time.  We have all three, my dearest dear.  And further Springs to come.

All my love, honey.  Happy Birthday.