i planted my hyacinth bulbs upside-down. i wish i could say it was an accident, a sleep deprived accidental hitch of the brain. but it wasn’t. it was ignorance. i’ve never planted bulbs before–the rounded end and the pointy end looked mighty similar to me.

but it’s startling to see that despite my mistake, the hyacinth are growing. the shoots reach around the bottom of the bulb and curve up and out of the earth while the tiny white roots spin down over the sides and into the ground. the rain has half uncovered these hyacinths of mine and they look like great purple women smoking long green green pipes through their mounds of white hair.

i’ve always been sort of bothered by people who make everything a metaphor. it feels so trite. and maybe this will feel trite to you… but my life feels like these hyacinth of mine. completely upside-down: like i’m not sure which way to grow for air and sun. i can’t believe how quickly everything is going to change. i’ve lived in cleveland for four years. i’ve carried two babies over the back stoop and home. and now we’re pulling up and carting ourselves north-west to ann arbor. it feels so out of control.

all this uprooting demands counterbalancing. so i’m going to spend april writing about the places, events, people, foods, celebrations, moments that have made cleveland mine. ripe and full and glorious and mine. i’m going to write about good things and bad things and things that you couldn’t call good or bad. and hopefully you can help me pack up the pieces of myself that i’ve left here and carry them to their new home.