【金子凼】Meeting Old Friends while Watching Flowers

Chinese Version
2020-04-16， Friday, snowing, raining, and windy

I visited the Chestnut Hill Reservoir recently and saw red flowering quinces blooming on the ground along the banks of the reservoir, instead of on bushes as usual. I felt that I had just collected another character of the flowering quince: blooming on the ground. This joy awakened sweet memories about the flowering quince on the East Coast, on the West Coast, and in Zigong (in Southern Sichuan), in the past.

In the early 1990′s, I was a graduate student in the chemistry department at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. After I started my PhD experiment research in VSL (Vitreous State Laboratory) , I had to walk across the campus from Maloney Hall where the chemistry department is located, bypass the Mullen Library located in the center of the campus, to Hannan Hall where VSL is located, daily.

Because I just came from Zigong, a place which rarely snows in the winter. I often felt the snowy weather was too much to bear. With cold weather outside and worries of study inside, I often felt frozen to the bone and exhausted in my soul while walking across the campus. On a very cold day, while bypassing the Mullen Library, I saw a bright red flowering quince blooming in the white snow like a flame, and I suddenly felt bright and hopeful in my heart. Since then, seeing the flowering quince blooming in the cold weather, just like seeing an old friend who came to visit me, which filled me with joy。

After graduating with a PhD in chemistry, I became a software engineer and moved to Silicon Valley in 1997. I lived there for more than 20 years.

In Silicon Valley, I saw red flowering quince blooms on the side of the streets and in residential areas very often. Because of the bright red color loaded on entire bushes, I could recognize flowering quince blooms from far away while driving. If I saw the bright red quince flowers in the yard of some not well-maintained neighbors, I would said to myself sentimentally: “This was once a garden filled with love.”

In April 2016, my daughter and I visited Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. On the hill behind the manmade waterfalls in the park, I saw flowering quince blooming not only in red, but also in pink and white. I stayed there watched the colorful flowers for a while with a smile on my face while satisfying my heart.

In the beginning of 2019, after coming to Waltham, I saw only red flowering quince blooms in early spring, but didn’t see the fruit of quince in the fall. As a newcomer to Waltham, I missed Silicon Valley. When I watch flowering quince blooming, I often said silently to myself: “Oh, flowering quince blooms in Golden Gate Park have different colors. Quince fruits in Filoli garden are as big as apples.” I felt that I was rich in terms of flowering quince.

In November 2019, accompanying my 90-year-old father, I went back to my hometown of Zigong. One evening, I visited my high school where I also had my first job as a chemistry teacher and taught chemistry for four years. After I climbed to the top of the hill and stepped into the yard that was surrounded by three-story classroom buildings, I felt this place had not changed. It was the same as it was in my memory in 1986, when I was a teacher here. I also saw a very tall bush with bare branches in the dark, and I immediately recognized this tall bush was the flowering quince bush I knew back in 1986.

Memories flash back from 1985, as a new college graduate on her first job as a chemistry teacher. In 1986, all my classes were moved to the new three-story classroom buildings at the top of the hill. In the new place, I quickly spotted flowering quinces in the brand new garden next to the stairs. Every year, in the early cold spring, while climbing upstairs to my classrooms, I stopped a bit to watch the flowering quince blooming and appreciated her beauty silently. I also felt the quince’s flowers were blessing me silently with their love.

After more than 30 years, I came back to my high school plus my first work place and stood at the same place, alone, in the dark；but I felt my old friend was still here waiting for me. It was a sweet revisit only a long-time flower lover could enjoy.

Little Episodes

1. Quince blooming on the ground in Chestnut Hill Reservoir (2021-04-19)