Smells Green.

The weather cleared, turned cold. Autumn cold. Except that instead of the smell of autumn we've got this pervasive green everywhere, sodden, new. Green. We are as green as we ever get, that new spring green all over everything, not the darker, set-in green of July. And I know what you're thinking about parallelism and how the smell of autumn and green aren't. Parallel, that is. Except ANYLF is here to report that, in fact, we smell green out here on the Piedmont. We smell like it rained four feet in two days and now everything everywhere is leafing out and leafing out again. If you've got a late holdout — a crepe myrtle, say — don't worry. That thing's fixing to be green, too. Cold day, cold wind, only a little heat in the sun, but underneath all of that was the clear and sure smell of solstice out there on the not-so-far-off horizon. Let's call it seven weeks or so. Let's say it was eight o'clock and still well light enough out to finish mulching in the impatiens along the front. Let's say that even though Blue-Tick-Beagle Paul came over during said mulching and spoke to me at great, great, great length about the dogs and also then about his wife's now-dead rich New York aunt and his now-dead brother the grifter and how his now-eighteen-year-old son who better straighten up and fly some other way than he's flying now or else he's gone by right darn pay some rent— let's say that even though I could not find any way to escape that conversation and considered, after a while, either breaking into tears or throwing myself beneath the next passing teen-driven jeep, still it was cool and clear, and still it was light out, and still it smelled green, and even as I knew what was coming was a cold, cold night for robins — 40 degrees or so — I just could not help but feel like things might perhaps still turn out somehow OK.

The azaleas stood back up, and so the robins are back to nesting at an angle that doesn't make me want to pull my own head off my body. I thought for a second this evening that I'd seen the third baby, but I'm not sure. ANYLF cannot confirm the third hatchling. Robins. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying for the robins. Last I saw her tonight, though, she was settled in, puffed out over the nest, ready for the cold. Ready for all this green everywhere. We warm back up later this week. Tomorrow, even. Smells like that out there, too, like it's chilly, but like it won't be for long.