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A Daughter’s Appalachian Spring
This year, for the first time, I witnessed the muster, symphony, and wind-down of Appalachian Spring at first hand, from start to finish; because this year, for the first time in thirty years, I was not living in Manhattan when the seasons turned. I was living in the Shenandoah Valley, in a small Appalachian town cradled by mountains, riding out the pandemic in my parents’ house. I arrived a year ago in June, settling into a room in the attic, descending in the morning and the afternoon to take the basset hounds on rambles through the neighborhood. I am still here. Every day, the dogs, Genghis and Ducky, bay outside the attic door when they can no longer bear waiting for me. When I press the latch and push open the creaking door, they hurl themselves at my knees and twist their bulky, muscular bodies through my feet, nearly knocking me downstairs in their eagerness. On our daily walks, I have seen the natural stage set around us shift, dressing itself in the lush greens, reds and yellows of summer; then in the bronzes and russets of autumn; then in the black-brown- white of winter. When the spring crescendo began this year, every color brought a new sound, a new energy, a new purpose, to the palette of the landscape.
The floral procession began in March with a trumpet salute of clangorous yellow forsythia, followed by the outstretched ruffled arms…
