It is mid-February. A beautiful afternoon, late winter/early spring. Warm in the sun, chilly in the shade. I am planting pansies, seeing green spears of daffodil leaves thrusting up towards the light, listening to the robins practicing their spring songs. The chorus frogs are warming up for a raucous evening of courtship in the pasture.
I think about the turning of the Wheel of the Year. I carry the planter box of pansies to the front porch and take down the Christmas wreath. I trim last summer’s flower stalks and empty seed pods from the anise hyssop and discover the new rosettes of leaves forming at the base of the dried stems. Soon the barn swallows will arrive, building new nests under the eaves next to last year’s crumbling bowls of mud. The days grow longer as the northern hemisphere swings back towards the light.
My thoughts turn to the Wheel of Life. Seven years ago on the 15th, my mother died. My 60th birthday will arrive in March. Two friends are facing illnesses with short-term horizons. My great-niece will have her first birthday in April. Every year the date on the calendar comes and goes when I will breathe my last, but that date is not yet known to me.
I think back to other springtimes, and one vivid memory unfurls in my mind’s eye... .
I think back to other springtimes, and one vivid memory unfurls in my mind’s eye... .
I am seven. It is a March evening, a few weeks after my birthday. I have escaped outside away from whatever Mom’s “drama du jour” is. I break off a whip from the weeping willow tree and try to interest the two kittens. They are the lucky ones who weren’t drowned in the bucket out back. "We can only keep a couple," my dad said, after we discovered the litter in the old cardboard box under the pyracantha bush. Now the two pounce, feign indifference, paw the “snake,” roll on it, and then chase each other across the greening grass. I wander off.
The wind is blowing, but it has settled into a strong breeze, allowing the stinging sands to settle out of the sky. Earlier in the day, It was hard to be out at recess on the bare playground. We hung onto the tormented elm trees, hopping first on one leg, then the other in our white anklets and plaid skirts, trying to jump over the hissing waves.
The uneven heating of the atmosphere above the desert Southwest causes the spring gales, cool fresh mornings giving way to brown hazy skies and grit in your teeth and eyes. But now the wind is dying down, and I wander back behind the hedge to the apricot tree by the old rotting woodpile.
The ground is paved with pink petals. The old tree is trying once again to bear fruit. Every year it brings forth a cloud of blossoms, only to be nipped by a late frost or beaten by summer hail storms. I grab the gnarled wood of the lowest branch and hoist myself up while breathing in the tree’s delicate perfume. I suppose its purpose is to attract pollinators, but the scent lights up my own young neural pathways: “SPRING.”
The gray ridges are rough on my bare arms as I lean on the sturdy limbs and find an even higher foothold, going up and up until I’m at the dizzying height of 12 feet above the ground. The wind rises, and I am sailing, clinging to the mast of my ship as it rides the waves through the pink storm of petals. I hum a song that I just made up, intoxicated by the smell and feel of the living tree dancing in the current of rushing air.
| I can still feel that excitement, that magic of a living tree dancing beneath my soft body, supporting me in my flight of fancy. Many times since then, Nature has offered me a dance partner, when I remembered to listen for the music. Every day, every moment, has the possibility of wonder if we only remember to say the magic words, “What is happening right now?” We can break the spell of the story we are currently living in (no doubt something we made up out of fear) and feel into what part of us wants to dance. Can you hear the music? Just breathe, a little longer…it’s there. It’s always there. Donna |  |
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