Trees

Today I drove down to Shady Grove early in the morning. Although I was really tired from getting back really late last night – the ball game was short, but the train home was almost two hours late – I really love this time of year for its visual impact. I love the way the trees look when the buds are just starting to squeeze out. The neon green halo around all the skinny brown branches electrifies the air. It looks like someone’s taken a watercolor brush dipped barely in green and in lots of water and put a wash over all the trees. As I drove down 95 toward DC the trees were budding green and red. The wash of color in the budding trees seems almost ghostly, a reflection. So very strange because it’s anything but a reflection – it’s decisively present. The few miles from Baltimore south to Shady Grove showed a difference in the stage of the budding trees – down by DC the buds are almost leaves, the flowering trees are spouting their milkshakes of petals already. The Cherry Blossom festival kicked off in DC yesterday, and I hope to go down on Wednesday to see all those Japanese gifts again. It’s definitely enough trees for a big wow.