Blossom Time

When I was 17, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston changed my life. I had forever loved books, but none had shifted my perspective so powerfully before this novel; or, to think about it differently, previous to this book, I had not been aware of the work a book was doing on me. The book lifted me off my feet and through a hurricane. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks.

Florida (where the book takes place) and California share at least one trait: in parts of both, spring arrives early. In my neighborhood right now, overgrown backyard fruit trees hang over hedges and fences, setting the hilly blocks snowy with petals and metallic with bees. The arsenic-sweet scent of prunus species trying to reproduce soaks into everything. This time of year, when the fruit trees go to it, I can't help but think of the novel:

"It was a spring afternoon in West Florida. Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard. She had been spending every minute that she could steal from her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep."