It began with a late-afternoon drive from the airport, all that green and a glint of the tropical as we passed by Palm Drive. The next morning, as I stepped onto campus eight hours before my interview, I was already falling hard for the place. Back in Vermont where I work as a writer, it had been a typical March: nickel-gray skies and one-day flings with spring that ended in snow and ice and mud. Now here I was at Stanford as one of 34 finalists for 12 John S. Knight fellowships in journalism.
I spent the day meandering around campus, trying to rehearse answers to imagined questions but distracted by clivia blooming in orange abandon and citrus trees bearing both fruit and blossoms. Near the Braun Music Center, the last flowers of saucer magnolias gleamed under the bluest sky, and I pondered an odd tree without flowers or leaves, its bark covered with lethal-looking thorns. By Green Library, panicles of starry white flowers exuded an aroma at once spicy and sweet. And everywhere, it seemed, eucalyptus trees dropped small flowers colored white, fuschia or cardinal red.
By the time I stumbled into my meeting with the fellowship committee, I was intoxicated. Perhaps I asked, "Should I wipe the drool from my chin?" or maybe I threatened to show up regardless of whether I made the final cut. I must have said something ccoherent, because I was offered a fellowship for the 1995-96 academic year.
When not in class, I spent much of my time on bike and afoot, gawking and smelling, counting petals and scrutinizing bark. Stanford, I learned, is a kind of United Nations of plants. Along with North American natives, there are representatives from South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia.
That odd tree with thorns is a floss silk, native to South America. In September, after dropping its leaves, it suddenly bloomed with creamy pink flowers. Meanwhile, near the Old Union, a natal coral tree looked already decorated for Christmas with flaming spikes of red flowers.
After a winter break back in Vermont--12 days of snow--I returned to campus and evergreen pear trees in bloom near White Plaza. I spent much of the winter learning simple things: how to tell a California sycamore from a London plane tree, Canary Island palm from Queen palm, the Queensland bottle tree from the flame tree.
Alas, as avocado, plum and lemon trees bloomed again in spring,
I began to panic. A new group of journalists was coming to Stanford
for interviews, many like me from places where winter's drab overcoat was still buttoned close to the land. My time here was nearing its end.
I went back to Vermont, a state of rural beauty and fewer cars. But
I have returned to Stanford twice, each time savoring a bicycle ride under cascading eucalyptus, a walk through nearly forgotten exotics in the cactus garden. Are there no fellowships for just enjoying the place?
Yvonne Daley writes and teaches in California and Vermont.
