You Will Always Find Columbines in My Yard

The thin mountain air pumps through our small lungs as our scrawny legs scramble up, up, up the narrow high-country path, eyes sweeping trailside…on the lookout.

“I saw it first!” we squeal simultaneously. Probably we’re both right. I’m a little faster, but my younger brother has the sharper eyes. We pant, hands on knees, and wait for our parents to catch up, their slow and steady gait evidence of their long experience in these mountains…or the fact that their packs carry all the weight.

Gathered together, we kneel before it almost reverently. “Blue for the sky; white for the snow; yellow for the sun,” I say, because I am the know-it-all.

“Aquilegia caerulea, Colorado columbine,” says my father, because he really does know it all. 

“Our state flower,” my brother pipes up, because he actually knows a lot, too.

“M&Ms all around,” smiles my mother, because she knows what’s most important. And because the brightly colored chocolate morsels are our traditional reward for finding the first columbine of the hike.  

We are high above Boulder, the sun is shining, the mountain air is clean, and I feel joy. I think I know even then that the sight of these flowers will always bring me joy.

2.

It is April and I am far from home, starting a new life by the ocean as a “grown-up.” In exchange for part of my rent, I have an agreement with the landlord to plant the flower boxes and tidy the yard of the old sea captain’s house before I’m kicked out. Come summer, the house will turn over to the usual high-season, big money vacation renters. Although I have no idea where I’ll be living in a month, I still figure it’s a pretty sweet deal. I haven’t been able to dig in the dirt since before college. And now I’m surrounded by flats of flowers and bags of soil. I’ve got johnny-jump-ups and petunias and geraniums and a bunch of other colorful things I’ve never heard of. I’m kind of making it up as I go.

Inside for a break, I swallow deep gulps of water and answer the phone when it rings. My mom is on the other end, choking back sobs. “Something is happening at one of the local schools,” she tells me. “They think there are students inside with guns killing people.” 

I’m confused. I didn’t go to this high school, but of course I know it. How can this be happening? Suddenly I don’t feel like a grown-up. I just feel very, very far from home.

Back outside, through tears, I look around at the smeared mess of color before me. I don’t have any columbines to plant.

3.

“No,” I explain to my (very patient) husband as we walk the aisles of the local nursery. “They have to be the blue kind.” 

To be honest, I didn’t even know columbines came in any other colors, and I’m a bit dismayed by these yellow ones doing their best to nod cheerily at me. It’s our first spring in our new condominium and the bylaws clearly state that we are not allowed to make any changes to the landscaping. I’m not going to break the rules for just any old flower.

A couple summers pass, and I’m at the nursery for I don’t even remember what. But I remember seeing that blue columbine sitting in its black plastic pot, tucked between the bee balm and the coreopsis. There is only one, and it comes home with me to the condo. I plant it along the side of the building, and I’m so afraid the landscapers will accidentally mow it down that I edge all around it with big sea clam shells.

The plant thrives, and so do I. I’ve brought a little bit of Colorado to my watery Cape Cod home. And perhaps it makes sense, given the scientific name my father taught us so long ago. After all, Aquilegia (derived by Linnaeus himself, according to information from the US Forest Service), comes from the Latin: to collect water.

When the stars align and my (still very patient) husband and I are able to purchase our first home – one that comes with real ground of our own! – it is probably true to say that no other belonging is carried across town with as much care as the columbine. That one plant is now several, divided and planted around the yard, blooming in blue, white, and yellow every year. And they do bring me joy.

4.

We have just passed the vernal equinox and are once again tilting toward the light. I’ve returned from teaching my yoga class (online, in these days of the pandemic), and I pull into the driveway eager to use the extra sunlight to explore the bits of new growth starting to emerge around the yard.

It’s early yet, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for my columbines. These days, my family and I text each other to claim honors for seeing the first columbine flower (now in our yards instead of along the trail). The M&Ms are of the virtual variety. The Colorado family always wins, by the way, and I maintain this is because spring comes late to Cape Cod.

I pop into the house to drop my gear and take a quick peak at the news. There is an active shooter situation unfolding in Boulder and my heart squeezes. This has happened so many times now, through the years. The confusion of that first time is no longer present, but the exquisite pain is just the same. As is the feeling of suddenly being very, very far from home.

My family reaches out to each other; everyone is safe – physically if not emotionally. And before dark, I do make it out to the front flower bed, which is mostly brown and beige except for the almost startling color of daffodil leaves and diminutive crocuses.

I wipe my tears and kneel into the soft earth. Carefully, tenderly, my fingers brush at the spot I know by heart. The tiny whorls hug the ground, purple edging to the curly green leaves. The columbine is there.