Ed Bieber: All At Once
After weeks of waiting patiently for the first dandelion to appear, we opened our door on a shocking sea of vibrant, yellow, near-stemless lion’s teeth. Crouched, or crawling on our hands and knees, we plucked as many as we could, laid them in a serpentine daisy chain across the yard, around trees, over rocks, up the steps and along the deck of the house. That same day, as if our lemony plunder had triggered a call and response, our driveway blacktop was showered with hundreds of pink and white petals from our cherry tree, perfectly spaced each from the other (how, I wondered, by whom, by what patient hand?). I got on my hands and knees again, puffed at the petals and watched them billow away and settle in fragile wisps of ticklish, haphazard pastel. I blew time and again, from one side, then another. My neighbor, if he happened to be watching, must have wondered. why I didn’t use a leaf blower. Or he might have considered joining me.
Ed Bieber is the founder and director of The Nature Place Day Camp.
Copyright 2020 Ed Bieber. From Outside/In: On Loving Nature & Living with Parkinson’s (Ragged Sky, 2020).
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