Magnolia

Two trees flank the driveway of our house, an ornamental crabapple on one side and a decrepit magnolia on the other. You don’t much notice them the rest of the year. But in the spring, like Plain Janes all gussied up for their very first prom night, they are something to behold. Almost in defiance of nature and seemingly overnight the crabapple bursts forth with thousands of tiny white flowers and the magnolia’s buds, which look a little like alien pods ready to spawn green-tentacled critters, erupt into gorgeous, waxy pink and cream blossoms that are large and delicate as teacups. They don’t give off much perfume, or maybe my middle-aged sniffer has become too inured to delicate scents, but what a visual feast! No matter how bad a day at work I’ve had, my chest swells with pride and my heart uplifts with bliss when I round the corner to our street and take in the spectacle in our front yard.

A few years ago, when some of the cousins were visiting, I cobbled together a swing from some heavy nylon rope and a plank of maple, clambered up the step ladder and tied the two rope ends to one of the magnolia’s thicker limbs with the only knot I know – the half-hitch. Any good sailor or farmer will tell you that except for maybe securing the laces of your tennis shoes or lashing shut a Hefty bag, this knot is useless and utterly unreliable. So I had no illusion this was a permanent fixture and I fully intended to dismantle it after the cousins left. But maybe it was raining, or I got distracted, and I never got around to taking that swing down, and my kids, and my kids’ friends, and the cousins, who have come back a few times since, still love to ride it, screaming with glee, or lost in reverie, under the bobbing, knobby branch of the magnolia. Yeah, I worry that one day those amateur knots will give out and someone will make a hard landing—hopefully nothing worse—and I will berate myself for not taking the deadly contraption down sooner. But when I see a child with the wind in her hair pumping her legs under that canopy of blousy blossoms and laughing, it is like a dream of childhood that I never want to see end.

Sadly, the spectacle is too brief. In late April, barely a day passes without a gentle shower or a brief thunderstorm to wash the road sand and winter grit down the storm drains and make everything bright and clean and fresh, get the earth ready for another chance at Eden. The weather takes a toll on the crabapple and magnolia, though. May is still a day away and already the driveway is littered with fallen petals, turning brown, staining the concrete and giving off a smell my aging nose can detect, the smell of vegetation slowly turning to rot. Melinda says that before the rains the magnolia is like a wedding, and after the rains like the post-celebration, the dance floor littered with confetti and cocktail napkins, the guests all gone home to sleep off the celebration. And the bride and groom in some undisclosed location happily dozing in one another’s arms and dreaming of their future together.