The first really warm day of spring

As I turned down the street, a butterfly and I followed the same path for a short distance. Last night, I dreamt about luna moths. The winged things are waking up, returning, having sex, singing, buzzing. Some crocuses are blooming on the south side of the library. Sugaring is over, and spring is now really beginning.

In which I remember something that happened 20 years ago

Walking into the
warm night--no shock of cold air.
waiting for peepers?

Yesterday, I drove my father up to West Brattleboro for his Aunt Helen's funeral. Dad is having to take a hiatus from driving until he gets certain medication levels readjusted. Since my mother is ambivalent, to say the least, about the Smith side of the family, and particularly Aunt Helen, it fell to me to skip work and drive Dad to West B. This was fine with me, because I'm sick of work this week; a chance to bugger off for the afternoon hours was welcome.

On the way home, I reminded Dad about the first time he let me drive the car on a public road ever. There--I said--that's where you pulled over and told me to get in the driver's seat. I didn't have my permit yet, and it was just the two of us that time, too, driving back on 142 through Vernon, Vermont. It was probably 1984. We'd gone up to buy some tires from a place that he knew, and spent the afternoon up at the cemetery in West B looking for the Smith family plot. We spent an hour and a half tromping all over that damn cemetery and found the names of many of our other ancestors, but not my great-grandfather's stone. I had holes in my favorite little ballet slippers, and it was about the same time of year, so my feet were soaked from the snow and cold. Then, when we finally gave up and left, as we were driving out, we saw this gigantic granite stone, like the Washington Monument, with "SMITH" in bold letters printed across it, right next to road in plain sight. Somehow, we had totally missed something so incredibly obvious. We laughed about it yesterday, both remembering this ridiculous story, and how I had driven back to Massachusetts from Vernon. If my life were a novel, this parallel circumstance would have been set up to make some point, underline some theme. Fortunately, my life is not a novel, so it was just amusing and warm.

Back at my parents' house, Cushing and sons is drilling holes for their new geothermal system. From the road, it looks like their house is being eaten by an alien or something: in the distance, there is the house, and looming above it is a huge orange drill, once again as tall. Surreal.

It smells like spring. Why am I at work on such a beautiful night? I should be sitting on the porch drinking single malt.

I just popped outside for a second:

It's rained: spots on the
pavement smell warm, like summer's
soothing thunderstorms.