April in Massachusetts
The wild daffodils are blooming in the back woods!
April in Massachusetts is a time when life re-emerges, picks up pace, moves forward. The snow has melted. Flowers bud. The trees whose bare branches were coated with snow only weeks earlier are turning lush green again.
For baseball fans, our long winter of despair comes to an end, as America’s game emerges from hibernation. In a way, America herself began to bud in April in Massachusetts; the Battle of Lexington was fought and won in April.
It’s bittersweet that I have to hope this is my last April in Massachusetts. If all goes well, I’ll be selling my parents’ house and moving back to Virginia soon. Of course I’ll visit; I could never leave for good. But for the first time in my life, I won’t have any kind of home base here; I won’t have roots in the ground on Opening Day or Patriots Day. I won’t see the daffodils bloom in the back woods again.
But that’s okay. We have flowers in Virginia. And history. And life moves forward.
I fell in love with travel on a trip to Mexico when I was nine years old. Since then, I’ve travelled the globe from Israel to El Salvador. I’ve skied the Swiss Alps and hiked national parks like Acadia, Zion, Shenandoah, and Virgin Islands. I’ve marvelled at masterpieces in the Prado, the Uffizi, the Huntington, and the National Gallery of Art. I’ve stayed in a cabin on a mountaintop in Norway and on a kibbutz along the Sea of Galilee, and been kicked out of the Ritz at the Place Vendôme. I’ve taken cooking classes from New England to the Caribbean, and watched a chef prepare traditional shakshuka in the kitchen of his restaurant in Tel Aviv. I weave historical research and my personal experiences together in writing this blog. I hope you find it helpful. Read more …
Sorry to hear of your loss and best of luck selling the house. It's always difficult to see a family home go.
Thanks so much for you kind words!