There is a brief moment between late spring and early summer when our our yard is a synchrony of white.

The white iris shared by a friend several years ago is finally established and glows its accent among its purple kin. Strawberry blooms begin to twinkle amid the emerald green grasses where the plants have escaped their raised beds. White violets peek up among the purple ones, and then the clover offers drifts of white flowers to tempt the bees.

The old, old rose begins to bud, just as the blackberry canes become lavished with white blossoms. This makes sense — many of these ( the berries and roses) are all part of the same large family of plants. A lingering glance outside offers the soothing view of white in all these manifestations, effortlessly coordinated and complementary.

Our national news was anything but harmonious, however. In rapid succession we faced the deep anxiety caused by a handful of right-radical members of Congress who have abandoned any pretense of economic responsibility and are apparently prepared to collapse our financial system for some elusive political gain. After weeks of uncertainty and disbelief, we got past this bramble-bush of wrong-headed political vituperation and machinations.

The day the final debt ceiling legislation was signed by President Biden, we awoke to find the sky filling with smoke from Canadian wildfires so intense they were deemed “unstoppable” by Canadian authorities. Our efforts to plant some trees along Main Street as part of our 350th anniversary in Northfield were delayed. There we were wearing masks again to get the trees unloaded; we had to wait for days for skies to clear enough to safely complete the planting.

At the end of that week, June 9, the Department of Justice indicted our former president on 37 counts, a shameful “first” for the nation’s history. The indictment offered a brief pause, like a flow of fresh air through a window, when justice seemed breathable; but within hours the rants and denials and obfuscations smoked up the room again.

So, we work between the rain showers, knowing that while not yet enough to alleviate the drought in parts of the state, each bit of rain nurtures the clover and feeds the bees; plumps up the strawberries; encourages the blackberries; and gently sustains the new trees and the old.

The fires in Canada and in our national politics are not out and will attempt to smother us again. But at intervals, the smoke will clear. We will see that more people agree than not, even on the most challenging issues such as the protection of abortion rights and safety limits on guns, and the numbers are slowly strengthening.

Despite concerted efforts to obscure the shameful and hurtful parts of our national history as a country founded on slavery and displacement or massacre of native peoples, this year we see more understanding of Juneteenth than ever. Even the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Native rights for adoptions in a closely watched case many expected to be decided differently. Another important case in June upheld protections for voting rights in Alabama, a state with a long history of voter suppression.

A lot of the talk about divisiveness is itself a tool to divide and discourage. There is no room for complacency or hesitation, but there is solid ground for building new structures to support democracy and justice.

Right now, color is bursting into view with the turning of the solstice. It began with the glorious peonies, already peaked; now the bold knockout roses are starting to bloom; the shell-pink climber we love, New Dawn, has burst from bud to flowers; the snapdragons are showing wonderful jewel tones.

The hollyhocks are displaying deep red after several years of waiting. The first-ever delphinium (finally!) is intensely complementing the false indigo. Oh, and I remember that the ancient hydrangea, tree-size despite branch-loss from the heavy snow this winter, will bring a huge luminescent bouquet of white flowers in late summer.

Spring may be passing, but the gift is now relayed to the summer. We are not done, not by a long shot.

Judy Wagner lives in Northfield.

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