I didn’t know how sweet spring could be until I spent it here, in Rockville, MD, this year. At first there were crocuses, tulips and daffodils, then violets and forsythia and magnolia, then cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, white dogwood, pink dogwood, azaleas, dandelions, red buds, iris.

Now these. Peonies.

When you dip your nose into the midst of these gorgeous specimens on a sunny morning and inhale … you feel buoyant, as if you could float up to the clouds, bask in the light and then, when you’re good and ready, come back and touch down. The same as before, yet lighter, revived.

I did, soaring home, after.