My husband laughs at me every time I speak in superlatives, but this truly has been the most beautiful spring. He says I say this every year, every Christmas, every walk down to Quansoo. You get the idea.
Our rhododendron hedge is beginning to bloom. It’s like a living painting to me. Whistler would have called it “Composition in White” one week, then “Etude in Pink” the next, and so on. Big buds on the Exbury azaleas soon will produce “Variations in Orange and Yellow.” All the groundcovers and bulbs, the varicolored hosta leaves, spreading may-apples, and delicately arching Solomon’s seal form a carpet below, as dogwoods and shadbush provide a flowering canopy overhead.
Make sure you look at Harriet Bernstein’s cherry trees when you drive down the Edgartown Road. They stretch across the front of her property, up the driveway where a red hat is posted sentry. And take time to smell the lilacs that are at their peak all over town.
I finally went into Boston to see the new American Wing at the MFA — at least a little of it. What a fabulous installation of art, furniture, decorative silver, and porcelain, all in a space especially designed to enhance and delight. I loved going from rooms with richly paneled damask walls covered floor-to-ceiling with paintings, to simply painted rooms sparsely hung. I only had time to visit my favorite “old friends,” the Sargents and Cassatts, Whistlers and Innesses, and Dennis Miller Bunker’s Medfield marshes. Nowhere near enough time. I can’t wait to go back, and I heartily recommend it to all.
Happy Birthday wishes go to Oscar Flanders. He will celebrate his first birthday on May 22 with his parents, Frank and Caroline, and big sister, Jean.
The Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School will celebrate a birthday of sorts, its 15th year, and the third renewal of its state charter, this Friday, May 20. There will be cake and song for all to share at the school at 2 pm. Congratulations to you all.
Happy Birthday to Wally LaBelle on May 25.
Vineyard Gardens continues its Saturday morning lecture series with a program about cut-flower gardens. The talk begins at 11 am.
Colleen Morris has a special craft project planned at the West Tisbury Library this Saturday. Supplies to make woven bookmarks will be set out all day for you to try your hand at this useful project.
Don’t forget that the library will be closed on Sundays beginning this Sunday, May 22, for the summer.
There will be cozy seats and free popcorn at the library for the Monday Night Movie. “Some Like it Hot,” one of the funniest and best movies ever, will be shown on May 23 at 7 pm. The weekly In Stitches knitting group meets at the same time.
I want to thank everyone who supported me and helped me raise $575 for Alzheimer’s Services of Cape Cod and the Islands at their Miles of Memory Walk last Sunday. For journalistic accuracy I have to admit I didn’t walk; as it turned out, Suzanne Faith asked me to help out with the logistics, so I stayed at the bandstand when the rest of the group set off. Many thanks to Victor and Ethan, who came over from the Cape to help. We had a good crowd of walkers, many of them whole families walking in honor or in memory of a beloved someone with Alzheimer’s. There was a bit of competition between long-standing high fundraisers, Bink’s Team of Oak Bluffs, and the Be Flexible Team led by West Tisbury’s own Simone DeSorcy.
Meanwhile, enjoy this last bit of free time we have before summer takes over.
