Last summer I had seen a honeysuckle flourishing over the ruins of the island's old hotel. Yes, curiously, McNutt's had a hotel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A trumpet honeysuckle vine twisted over the remaining pile of lath, shingle and boards, its red and yellow flowers like little jewels amid the rubble. When I looked it up I learned that it was a native honeysuckle, not the fragrant Japanese variety, and that it was beloved by bees and hummingbirds. We had two hummingbirds last summer, and they made me lust after more.
In the fall I put a few vines into a mason jar with water, and -- as an experiment -- put a few directly into the ground, leaning against the picket fence. I watched the vines in the mason jar as the leaves gradually withered and turned brown. For several weeks nothing seemed to be happening. I nearly lost patience and threw them out but Greg stayed my hand. Then, around Christmas, I saw some root growth. Then I saw tiny green leaves. When I checked outside at the picket fence, I saw that the honeysuckle vines had put forth tiny dark red nodes.
Some might say, Oh, so what? A honeysuckle, for heaven's sake. How could it not grow? But then they'd be missing just how amazing it is to see tiny green leaves on the first day of a new year, all this furled-up promise.
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