It has been a spring like the ones that used to be. Besides one hot week in early April, it has been chilly and damp for weeks and weeks. It rains frequently; the temperatures go down to single digits at night. Nighttime is blissful: cold sheets to slip between, a fluffy blanket that slowly warms. Mornings are fresh and cool and you have to check the weather by sticking an arm out of the window before you leave the house to make sure you’re wearing the right clothes. Last week, despite socks and long pants and cotton sweaters over shirts and thin jackets, Hugo and I half ran home from the doctor’s office, bent over against a cold wind that blew us through the park where I once saw Alexei Navalny taking a walk with his bodyguards, their darting eyes as sharp as daggers.
This is the season of the blossoming linden trees; their heavy fragrance sits in the air and floats indoors through open windows. It is particularly strong after dark. Every evening, once the kids are in bed, we end up in the living room where the balcony door is open and the scent wafts in. We sniff the thickly perfumed air in great, greedy inhales, sighing with pleasure. For some reason, this year, their fragrance is particularly strong. I wonder if it is because of the lower temperatures and the frequent rain. Are the trees happier than they have been the past several years when May and June were as hot and miserably dry as July and August? Then I think that maybe the trees smell just as much as they always have, but that I am misremembering things. After all, I am astonished each year anew by spring’s arrival.
After the linden trees finish blossoming, they begin to leak a sap-like substance that makes the sidewalks sticky and clouds car windows. The blossoms dry up into frizzled little bits and fall off the trees, then get stuck to the sidewalks and the soles of shoes. This phase is messy and annoying and lasts longer than anyone likes. By the time it’s over, the heady fragrance that bewitched us on those cool spring nights is long forgotten and we are well into the heat of summer. But never mind all that. For now, this cool spring still feels unusual and magical. When I go out for an evening bike ride, I am moved nearly to tears by how good it feels to be alive, cycling past the explosion of greenery above and around me, the golden light of the setting sun low on the horizon, the cool air on my ankles, the thick linden scent all around as I pedal faster and faster. I don’t want it to end.
The other night, we had our downstairs neighbors over for dinner. I made a double batch of this delicious chicken—a mix of wings and thighs and drumsticks—and an enormous bowl of this perfect slaw (it continues to be perfect) and an extremely forgettable pot of brown rice that hardly anyone touched (I used it up in this bright and crunchy dish for lunch the next day, which was very satisfying). I am telling you that the chicken and slaw were brilliant together not just because they tasted so good as a pair, not just because they were so easy to put together ahead of time, which makes them a great candidate for your summer entertaining needs, but because I want to remember for next time, too.
At the end of dinner, when there was nothing left but bones picked clean on empty plates and the dregs of the dressing at the bottom of the salad bowl (never mind the brown rice), we cleared the plates and then I pulled out the slam dunk of the summer dinner party: two boxes of ice cream candy bars. I got the idea from Joanna and can confirm that it is a pro move. Every single person at the table, ages 7 to 50, was delighted. Giving people a choice between two—Mars and Snickers—was at least half of the fun.
Later, when our neighbors were back downstairs and our children were in bed and the kitchen was cleaned up and the night was growing dark again, we went back to the living room. We opened the balcony door and welcomed in the perfumed night air. Then we sat together and sniffed the gorgeous smell, like two Ferdinands under the cork tree, just quietly.
Beautiful, thank you.
Hi Luisa,
I like your life story, your writing, your reicipes, and have found many wonderful books from your comments. I'm wondering--of course you've read Jenny Erpenbeck. I just finished Kairos and would like to know what you thought of it. perhaps you could comment for your readers on this site. Thanks, Lee Haas Norris in Portland Oregon