The March of Tulips

Tulip in Akron, March 2007

Most of the time spent at my kitchen sink is after dark. After the kids have been put to bed I begin knocking out my handful of evening chores which almost inevitably includes washing the dishes. But sometimes I wash dishes during the day, and I always spend some amount of time standing by the sink – after rinsing things off, washing my hands, or filling up a bottle for Maggie. The kitchen sink is just one of those places where you end up spending a lot of loose moments within the day.

At this house we are lucky enough to have a window behind the sink(see previous blog “Ordinary Love” for photograph). In our previous one, the minutes spent washing dishes romanced the individual to a tiled wall vista. Since moving here in September of last year, this window view has been a welcome change of pace. While neither exciting nor mesmerizing, this view is mostly filled up by our immediate neighbor’s house, an entire 12 feet away. The siding is a nondescript graying white. The space between our homes is divided by a short wire fence into two walkways that lead out onto the street. There is some sidewalk, some scabby grass, the occasional yippy neighbor dog, but nothing noteworthy – until now.

The other day I was surprised to notice tulips poking their spearheaded leaves sharply up out of the soil along our neighbors house. Where I had guessed only weeds and their descendants to dwell – bulbs had been nesting away in their quiet homes all winter long. Ahhhh! I can’t wait to see what color they are. What a difference they could make to this window view! It would be like inserting some drops of dazzling color into a black and white photograph.

I wasn’t always so interested in tulips. While living in Akron, my wife spent some of her precious few moments of “down time” troweling up the soil around our little cape cod and planting enough perennials to make us reluctant to leave them behind. Right beside our most-used entrance to the house, she created a bed of bright pink tulips; the bulbs were a gift from her Mom. These tulips became an inextricable part of our cycle of life in the four years spent going in and out of that door – four spring seasons in which we looked forward to the March tulips as they sprang from the still cold earth, straight and tall, stalwart and inviolate in their symmetry.

They multiplied every year and when we left last July, we dug up what bulbs we could. They sit now in a yellow bucket in our basement, waiting for us to find them a new home. We, too, are waiting. We are only renting this place; and expect to be here only a short time. My wife’s trowel waits in a cardboard box – the garden hose lies limp under the porch. For now we will await the March of the neighbor’s tulips.