Monday, May 12, 2014

MIracles and Magic

It's been a rough few weeks and I got really scared.  Not scared like when I was a single mom and didn't know how I was going to pay the rent, or when David was sick and dying, or even when I was a kid in a really bad situation.  Then, no matter what happened, hope lived inside of me.  I never doubted that I could make things different.  This was different, I realized that place inside of me where hope lived was empty and it scared me. I didn't know how to live without believing I could make things better. 


I've been stumbling around for a while, trying to figure out what happened and what I needed to do to bring hope back.  I finally admitted to myself that I had no clue and that scared me even more.  Finally, I did the only thing I could think of to do, I told the folks in my grief group that I had lost hope and I was terrified.  It helped to be heard and then on the way home I saw these beautiful and perfect things:


The first of the fireflies.


A few adult geese in a field and all around and among them a tumble of puff ball babies.


And then perhaps the most perfect thing of all:  Looking down a side street I saw a young man riding his bicycle home from work or the university with a beautiful red and blue cape flowing out behind him.  You know, the silky superhero kind. 


After watching the bluebirds choose a nest box, build a nest and feed babies I saw the fledglings take their first flight, something I have never seen before.


I woke up the next morning and that empty spot in my heart wasn't empty.  Hope had come back, quietly at first, but over the last week it's voice has gotten stronger.  The light in the afternoon makes me happy, working in the garden satisfies my soul, and somewhere I believe life will be good again.  I still don't know how it will happen, or what I need to do, or where I will end up but I believe again that I will figure it out. 


It's all miracles and magic and I will be satisfied with that. 

Saturday, May 3, 2014

All I Would Ever Need

The redbud sapling in the side yard is set against a backdrop of dark pines and this time of year it glows.  Each delicate heart shaped leaf is illuminated from within with it's own particular shade of green.  It is a glory against the black branches and pine boughs.  At first, I thought it was the sun lighting the leaves, but today with a cloudy start the leaves glow with even more intensity.


I sit with my coffee between two native azaleas that are just in bloom.  They smell like the beach.  I can't even name it any better than that.  It is something of sun and salt and sand, a biting slight sweetness.  Mos of the azaleas are as sweet as honeysuckle,  but these two are Beach.  Planted in just these particular spots for me to sit in my patch of morning sun and sip my coffee.  Pure pleasure. 


But the glowing redbud - that's a delicious surprise.  Every Spring there are surprises.  I don't keep a neat garden and plants rearrange themselves at will.  Every year the Columbine, Evening Primrose, Four O'Clocks and strawberries move around.  They come up in unexpected places, even the driveway.


Unexpected glories, traveling mercies, and inner illumination.  If I could manage those with the abandon my garden appear to, it might be all I would ever need in this life of mine.