A great florist, the contagious joy of other's people's style, and a discussion of crows

plus marbled terracotta planters and tiny notepads

Spring exploded this week - the chicks hatched in my son's 1st-grade class; the daffodils are out in force; it's parent-teacher conference season. My oldest is a day student at a boarding school; the last few days have been chock-a-block with Parents' Weekend events and meetings. As we emerged from puffer coat season and walked from class to class with Alex in a sea of other parents and teenagers, I was reminded of how much I love the serendipity and pageantry of all the ways people put outfits together. The joy of other people's style is contagious.

As an introverted lover of the power of small talk, one way to overcome my natural reticence and shyness is to ask about details of a stranger's outfit, which sometimes leads to deeper conversations about why someone was drawn to a piece of clothing, where they were when they bought it; who gave it to them; if they made it, what it reminds them of. One of the things I miss most about living in NYC is street style, the symphony of styles,…