Verdant

There is no other place that fills my heart like Mississippi in the spring. There is a quality to the light here always, a dusting of gold that coats everything in the late afternoon. In the spring, that quality expands and the simple act of driving home becomes a moment of epiphany.

The trees are becoming green again. It's so subtle at first that you can't be sure if it is real, a breath on a cold window pane. When it strengthens, there are a million shades of green among the trees. Sturdy pines mix with the delicate paleness of new dogwood leaves. The live oaks tassel and drop last year's leaves. Even the sluggish pecan has started to show the knobby buds that will eventually unfurl to clothe them.

Yesterday, the day was perfect. The sky was a blue that was right out of a Crayon box. Rising to the top of a highway hill outside of Podunk, I could feel my heart swell, and I felt a little like the Grinch when his heart grows so suddenly and breaks the bonds that had held it.

I came home, loosed Missy (whose nickname has become Roux), and sat in the chair in my shaggy backyard with a book. I read for awhile, but I also found myself just staring up into the live oak watching the shifting greens as the wind dragged its fingers through the canopy, opening and closing windows to the sky. I pity those who don't have a similar place of peace.

My yard won't ever win any awards for horticulture, and admittedly, my grass needs cutting more often than I am able to get to it, but there may never be a sweeter or prettier spot than that plastic Adirondack under the lush verdancy of the live oak in my back yard.