pull up a chair

overnight, really, the pulsing reached a throbbing, and then, with help of fairies yanking on a web of silken cords, that little bud relinquished, dropped its tightly guarded hold.

relax, the fairies must have whispered. it’s time now. you can let go. not hide your face. don’t be shy. be bold. tonight’s the night when, at last, this one time only, you unfold. stick your neck out. inhale the world, while all the world readies to inhale you. drink you. dance with you.

and so, it’s morning now. the night is slipped away. dawn came. the ever-reaching fingers of the light. the whole world went from indigo to washed-out blue to white.

and when i tiptoed down the stairs, there it was. just waiting. coyly there atop the tangled branches that i love, get caught in, every spring and all year round, its unruly tendrils reaching out to trip me, ensnare me in its messy hold.

didn’t say a word, that bud-becoming-blossom. hasn’t yet been joined in company, by all the other tight pink buds that, too, are pulsing. but not yet throbbing. the fairies haven’t yet been called. tonight maybe. perhaps when darkness, the cloak those fairies love, comes again.

i think, perhaps, i might camp out. keep watch. sit just beneath their yanking place, where they set up their net of cords, and one-two-three-pull-gently-now.

might see if i can catch the miracle myself. watch how the little petals do their backbends to the moon. try to be there when the perfume button’s pushed. and all the world’s awash in eau de korean spice viburnum. heady scent if ever there was one. one i wait all year for.

one i could drown in. and be happy till my last glug-glug.

so that, i think, is how the flowers bloom. in dark of night. on fairy strings. a choreography of whispers, and shared participation.

not a single bloom can bloom, i’m sure, without the orchestra of tuggers and pullers who come and do their little magic dance.

and so it is with all of us. us who, sometimes, are curled up in a ball at the end of our lone stem. we can’t budge. can’t figure out how in the world the whole unfurling works. we could sit there for days and weeks. pore over instruction manuals, try to make sense of all the diagrams.

but without a web of fairy whispers–in the form, of course, of gentle unrelenting words of love, of friends who won’t back down, who won’t leave us out there on the dangling distal branch, who coax and tug and squeeze our hand on the days we can’t see straight–wouldn’t all the world be curled-up little balls of beauty never seen?

blessings on the lot of you who rounded ‘round my sorry self. i think, perhaps, the life’s work of spring might be to sniff around and try to find the unfurled knots of hope, and joys not yet tasted.

perhaps we all need be the fairy circles who gently do the work, so ones we love–and ones who know no love–can stretch their petals and drink in the holy sunshine.

amid my yesterday’s wobbling, my blessed friend sosser quoted maira kalman, the brilliant illustrator and seer of the world, who says perseverance is the thing. simply getting back up the next morning. and so, for maira–and sosser and all of you, and most especially for myself–i got back up. here i am this morning.
here’s the marvelous wonderful quote, worth taping to your wall, as it’s taped at sosser’s house….

“i do the best i can which means i try not to do it right but just to do it as i feel and as i see.  getting it right is not a good goal.  the biggest secret is perseverance.  just not stopping no matter what.  i do everything i do because i love to do it, even when i worry or am confused or slightly in despair.  those feelings usually pass.  and then the next day is there.  always a good thing.  the next day.” -maira kalman

one more thing, it’s may day. don’t forget to rub the morning’s dew upon your face. here’s why.

and happy blessed birthdays to julia who turns 15 today, and little angel who turned 5 just yesterday…..blessings to you both…..
oh, xoxo

you do see, up in that snap above, the little bit of difference between yesterday’s and today’s unfurling blossom? you do see that one little baby poking its pink head up, just a little higher, softer, than all the rest? stay tuned. we will all behold the miracle of unfolding here together….