I remember quite well that leaden April morning, the front end of our ancient van clanking in protest as we climbed the steep washboard road through the forest, where stale snow still clung to the dark places, climbed to where the woods shrank back from the dull, matted fields to reveal the ridges rolling away to the mountains at the end of the valley, like some moldering purple blanket that had lain out by the garden all winter.