north country.

one bright and beautiful day lived in the hudson valley, just a half-morning's train ride north, picking apples and filling our lungs with cold, country air. october last, bub bumbled about the orchard in a red wagon, happy-pawing our bounty and cradling apples in his hands like small moons. this year, he's a baby-become-boy, darting betwixt trees and reaching on highest tippy toes up-up-up and sneaking single bites, one after another. oh heart puddle of heart puddles, apple-cheeked and wellie-clad, such a happy boy, such magnificent squeals, such autumn days of dreams. 

sunday morning autumn song.

baby rose asking for edith piaf and so that was how sunday bloomed: spinning records and pressing coffee, dim light, wool slippers, nibbles of pear, sprawling like lions across the floor of the nursery. afterwards we went out for our neighborhood rounds: the farmers market, the grand bazaar, the cafe on amsterdam for sandwiches to share, a park ramble under cool clouds holding close the rain, murmuring holy and this and another coffee, turning homeward with pumpkins-in-arms and thoughts of paperbacks and chili.

jazz age lawn party.

it was spectacular: we stepped onto the ferry in manhattan in 2019 and stepped off on governors island in 1920, an afternoon for picnicking in the soft sunshine, sipping gin cocktails and lemonade, and dancing the charleston to the dreamland orchestra. there was something to marvel on everywhere we turned -- croquet games, dance lessons, vintage portraits, an old-time magic show, oak trees lined sweeping and sun-dappled along colonel's row. a joyous summer's day.

to see the blossoms bloom.

year after year, our weekend in d.c. arrives on the wings of spring. by now we've lost count of how many years this makes -- four? -- and each tuft of blossoms greets us sweeter than the last. if last year's memories sing of our earliest weeks of parenthood and francis' first laugh (and the year before that: of hope for our very baby, come down from the stars), this year the pitter-pat of very first steps upon earth is the only thing we could hear. 

we delighted in our best loved spots 'round town (blueberry pancakes at eastern market, supper at founding farmers, swooning over roses and rowhouses on capitol hill, pitango gelato, wawa coffee for the drives to and fro) and made new checks on our ever-growing list (district doughnut, the national museum of african american history and culture). mostly we marveled at this sparkling thought: year after year, our weekend in d.c. arrives on the wings of spring, some years in april and others in march, but always just exactly as the blossoms bloom to burst, as though they know how we treasure them as tokens of time, as though they know we've come all this way just for them.