When I was a boy, my childhood room looked out over an enormous thorny Hawthorne tree. Its branches softened that corner of the house; its thorns deterred would-be climbers, not that there were any lower branches to gain such a climb. In late spring, it would be filled with white flowers, not unlike the pear tree blooms seen here. Those petals wouldn’t last very long, especially if the weather turned too warm. At those moments, and on those precious days, the petals would flutter to the ground like falling snow – a magical effect that never failed to enchant me. Sitting beneath a flowering tree just as it is giving up its show is always a brush with the sublime.
Spring’s enchantments are usually fleeting – that’s an integral part of their charm. We chase them for their elusive nature. When caught, they are always worth the work, even when we know they won’t last, because beauty makes this world bearable.
Electric yellow sends a forcefield of energy through the spring air from the sun-reflecting Forsythia blooms. Indelible harbinger of the season, Forsythia doesn’t bother with subtlety or softness. Like its angles and sprawling form, its flowers are almost brutally glorious, shining like a hundred little suns, seen from even great distances, especially at this somewhat barren time of the year.
The palette of spring is not always pastels, and sometimes the most electric yellow combines with the powerful punch of violet, as in the pansy below. That’s when things really get lit.
Not to place any validity on astrology, but here’s something that came over my Virgo algorithm:
“The planners can’t plan, the fixers aren’t fixing, they stopped over explaining themselves, so if a Virgo in your life seems unhinged, honestly they’re not. They just realized they’ve been doing everybody else’s job this whole time and quit without notice.”
Astrological mayhem aside, these past few weeks have been a rollercoaster to match the fluctuating weather. Rather than rising to take the bait of getting riled, I’ve mostly managed to stay steady, staying true to the direction the universe has been nudging, and relying on comfort reading and daily meditation. The gardens have done their part too – my time spent in amending the soil and tidying up the backyard has been a type of meditation too.
I see the lilacs are finally in bud – the promise of beauty and perfume in the near future, while all the peonies have grown inches within days – more perfumed beauty in store. The ferns are already fast unfurling – once that first spell of warm days hits, followed by some rainwater, they quickly become unstoppable. This is how spring unfolds, very similarly from year to year, give or take a few days, and I’m reminded that there is no need to overthink everything.
When the rain arrived at the end, or very beginning of the week, I found solace and escape at the local greenhouse, where this strikingly-shaded Mandevilla straddled that scintillating section between purple and pink, not quite committing to either, an teasing both out depending on the light and one’s angle. Before the rain, there were a few days of summer teasing – on with the weekly recap of that rollercoaster…
Whenever the day and the spirits turn to gray, the world turns upside down, and everything you once thought you knew reveals itself as something different, it’s the ideal opportune time to pause and take stock of what’s really at work. In my experience, the bulk of problematic ickiness that descends on certain rainy Sundays is largely a matter of perception – of perceived grievances and false attributions that our worst instincts re-enforce and perpetuate, our own minds actively working overtime to become our own worst enemies.
At such times I take to writing to make whatever sense I can of the moment. Putting it down on paper and working it out in words helps me organize and analyze – but even more simple and basic than that, it gets it out of my system. I literally let it pour out of my head, into my hand, then out through the pen and the paper that now holds a written testament to whatever is going on at the moment.
Sometimes all the universe wants is acknowledgement – a nod of recognizance that none of this is normal, and that all it was seen, and felt. Sometimes – at the most lucky times – this is enough to move beyond the muck of a gray Sunday.
“… he had yet to acknowledge the romantic fever it was his gift to inspire, and the inflammatory dreams and misunderstandings he could ignite with his silences.” – Laura Argiri, ‘The God in Flight’
Old books are like old friends – when they’ve played a pivotal part in your formative years, it feels like they know you in a way that only an old friend could. Currently I’m re-reading one of my favorites, ‘The God in Flight’ by Laura Argiri, an indulgence I partake of every few years, the same way I return to the more mainstream ‘Great Gatsby‘ just for the cadence of words, the depictions of longing, and the sense of romantic abandon that has always privately called to me (and that I always had the reckless determination to foolishly act upon).
Born with a viciously romantic nature, I had it beat out of me – as much by my own hands as the metaphorical hands of wicked men whose only wickedness was in not being interested. Anything but apathy seemed bearable; how unfortunate that disinterest was what I most inspired due to my own petrified countenance among those men who captured my attention. Eventually I embraced apathy as well, as much for emotional survival as from the wear and tear of having gone through it so many times; an unhappy collision of forced and natural modification to a romantic soul not quite designed to navigate the fickleness of human beings.
“Even if he had not been beautiful, he would have been the first person in any crowded room whom the others looked at first, the one whose motions they tracked with fascinated eyes… My God, he smells wonderful.” – Laura Argiri, ‘The God in Flight’
When I think back to the first time I read these words, and the young man whose romantic yearnings were just being kindled, I feel a tenderness and ache for what he was about to put himself through. If I could speak to my younger self I’d say something like, “Relax, enjoy, stop overthinking everything and simply inhabit the moments and days of youth. If it’s meant to be, it will be. If it’s not, it won’t. The rest will fall into place.”
The only thing I wouldn’t change would be his willingness and overzealous desire to fall in love. To that I would only say, “Do it. Whenever in doubt, choose to love. Even if they don’t love you back – keep on loving them. Even if they don’t deserve it, love. There is a nobility in that no matter whether the sentiment is returned. And don’t ever apologize for loving.”
Granted, the actions and craziness that often accompanied such emotions are a different thing entirely – those should definitely have been modified, but the folly of youth was strong and, for me, insurmountable.
“He was a dandy, a beauty, an actor, a fabulist – your canting puritan might say a liar – and he loved to make trouble for deserving parties, including himself. He did all this in a spirit of cheerful despair, being one who experienced sadness in the guise of intolerable restlessness rather than in its raw form.” – Laura Argiri, ‘The God in Flight’
No matter how inconvenient or disruptive, no matter how much it hurt, I never gave up loving. Whenever I felt it, I proclaimed it, unabashedly revealing feelings I hadn’t even fully processed. It’s an essential component of what made me into the person I am – perhaps one of my only saving graces – and I would most certainly need grace, and perhaps a bit of saving in all the years that followed.
Now when I read this book it resonates differently, the way the past no longer hurts quite as keenly, the way infatuations no longer sting, the way I’ve moved beyond losing myself to such wild abandon.
The morning was an ambivalent one. Couldn’t decide between sunny and hopeful or dreary and overcast. Moods shifting like the swiftly-moving sky. Spring a master of the capricious.
Awakened by the kettle’s scalding water, the dried flowers and herbs come back to life – the familiar magic of tea calling from centuries past, lives and lovers crossing time and space to make themselves known, to be unforgotten. Tea is the promise that even when a flower dies, its petals dried and desiccated, its soul might continue, might find purpose and be reborn.
Tea captured in a cup, cradled in my hands, diminishes the chill of morning.
Tea stilling time, bringing clarity and clouds, swirling like the sweet nectar on the lips of a Hoya bloom.
It arrived suddenly, almost without warning, save for an ominous blanket of clouds rolling quickly overhead. One moment I was taking a picture of the first jonquil to bloom, the next the sky was releasing a deluge of wind and water, and branches and leaves and pinecones were flying through the air like some Wizard of Oz cyclone. It was violent, and while storms usually thrill instead of scare me, this one left me spooked from its hurried and instant attack. A raw brutality crackled through the sky. Lawn bags by the road were torn asunder – hours of filling them wasted in the debris strewn across the street and driveway. The rain was savage too – not steady or gentle, but choppy and haphazard – gigantic drops that fell like little cups and swirling mists that stung and rendered umbrellas useless.
Then, just as quickly as it arrived, it was gone. In its place was a double rainbow – the covenant, the promise, or the simple refraction and reflection of light through water. The explanation of science has never taken away from a rainbow’s beauty and, quite frankly for my analytical mind, has only ever added to it.
A dramatic and messy glimpse of a possible summer, as the day’s 80-degree temperature offered a peek at what might come… how fortuitous to have it end in a rainbow.
Early in the morning there is only birdsong and wind to bother the ears, which is the sort of quiet that allows garden work to become somewhat of a meditative experience. It used to take me a while to reach such a state – I was accustomed to noise and music and the general buzz of life making its monotonous roar. Once I started meditating, I learned to embrace the silence and enjoy the stillness. These days I can go outside and instantly adopt a meditative posture – deeper breathing, deliberate mindfulness, and the calm and tranquil countenance that, once engaged, builds upon itself – peace fostering peace.
These hothouse orchid pics will have to suffice until the outside weather matches the fire of the inside heart. Might this be the week that we make the irrevocable turn away from winter weather? Temps are forecast to soar into the 80’s and even if they’re coupled with predicted rain, I’ll take it. The water tables need it, and the garden won’t complain. I’ve already done the majority of yard clean-up, so we’re back on schedule – not that I’m keeping a schedule anymore. On with the weekly blog recap…
May the skies be the only space where drama unfolds this spring season, and may the weather stay up there instead of down here. That probably doesn’t make much sense – if it’s happening up there it will eventually fall down here, at least as far as precipitation goes. I’m not a meteorologist, as if it needs noting, so nothing coming out of my mouth should make much sense as far as those things go. I do know a pretty sky when I see it, and even the grayest and most cloudy one has merit; often they are more interesting than a sky of blue.
This post is getting away from me before it even has a chance to establish itself. Some springs are like that too – they tease a day of warmth, followed by three days of frigidness. A cruel bit of bait and switch, and the sky refusing to give up its secrets.
Snow arrived swirling and accumulating the other morning when I woke up – thankfully it had largely melted by the time I drove to work, but the emotional wear and tear of this atmospheric rollercoaster had already worn me down. We are tired of this – winter had its time, this should be spring. Bring on the warmth so we can clean up the yard.
Andy had already opened up the pool, and it’s probably colder than the 47 degrees it was at before the drop in temps. Still, it’s nice to see some blue, even if it’s not in the sky.
Signifier of spring, the robin is a perennial totem of hope. One usually builds a nest near the house, sometimes in a most inconvenient place that occasionally needs to be taken down before it goes up (if they’re too close to a door or entryway, they would not allow us by once the eggs get laid). The last few years we’ve reached a reasonable compromise – they’ve taken to the Wolf’s eye dogwood tree, the climbing hydrangea’s arbor, or somewhere in the Thuja wall. We are still less of a threat than the hawks or crows, which have heartbreakingly raided nests in the past.
The circle of life often feels most perilous in the spring, when everything is still tender and raw.
