Since I started working in Trenton, I’ve noticed these on the side of the highway for the first time — blue flowers growing on stalks a foot or two high. Once I started looking, I found them everywhere. I think they’re chicory.
I visited my brother in the Chicago suburbs this summer and was surprised when he didn’t know what the black birds with the red blazes on their wings were called — it’s so striking, it looks like a digital effect. (They’re red-winged blackbirds.) But it turns out that I’ve lived in this area for 38 actual years, and somehow I can still discover things that are absolutely everywhere.