pull up a chair

at last, i couldn’t leave her there outside my window. no longer could i resist her fine allure, the unrelenting airwaves, the ones she sent my way, through windows cracked for air, and that little tiny space where the door jamb’s never snugly fit and, in the winter, lets in refrigerated winds.

ever since my spicy viburnum bravely boldly bared her inner workings, i’ve been underneath her spell. i wake and breathe her in. i dilly-dally not too far away, pretending i am plucking sticks or stones, when really i am only getting drunk. on her sweet perfume, and the way she coyly cocks her head.

this morning, i admit, i was overcome. basically went bonkers.

if temptation were a teeter-totter, and resisting took a careful balance, well, then, i sank. smack hard, i fell. and off i tumbled. gave in completely to the whims of spring.

what knocked me down was this: suddenly i realized the equation here was wholly out of balance. out the door, and down two steps, all was swirling. a soup of spicy honey notes, lolling through the open sky and down my breathing tubes.

but just inside, where i cook and burn things right and left, all i could mostly smell was blackened broccoli from the night before.

so i did the only thing i could. i balanced out the smells. i reached beneath the sink, grabbed my felco no. 2’s, the pruning tool of choice, and i went and clipped not one, not two, but three. ouch, and ouch, and ouch.

i winced, but couldn’t help myself. and that blessed bush didn’t even whimper. just openly surrendered the fruits of all her labors. i think she understood that to be brought inside is a worthy sacrifice.

crowning glories are what they are, those soft pink petals the color of an oyster’s inner sanctum, and now they fill my house.

so help me, as i sit and type, two whole rooms away, and down a hall and steps besides, i could close my eyes and think she’s just beneath my nose, perfuming every molecule, invigorating all my typing.

is she not a beauty queen, preening there upon my window sill? i can barely stand how beautiful she is.

in fact, i can’t stand to leave her where she is, alone upon the sill. so now i’ve taken to making like a bridesmaid, carrying her, in her little vase, wherever it is i traipse.

it’s quite a fine design. she sits there sipping waters; i go about my whole day’s business. so far, she’s only made it up and down the stairs and ’round the house. but any minute now i must trek outside, down the block, and over to the school where my little boy is learning. do you think i might get funny looks?

oh, well, who cares. there are those who’ll understand. and those who don’t, oh, well.

i’m sure as sure can be, that, come nightfall, when at last the day’s staccato quiets down, and her soothing comes in mighty handy, i’ll carry her to bed with me. i’ll tuck her in, right beside my pillow, and whisper my good nights.
while i dream of sweet and soft and spicy stories, she’ll keep watch and fill the midnight and the dawn with the dwindling notes of her complete surrender.

this is the end of my sweet viburnum’s story. i might check in on the day she fades away. but for now her story’s over. bless you who read along. and may you too be touched by the miracles of spring, who offer up their essence for our most essential joy. if we only pay attention.

sometimes, silence is the most eloquent salutation.

and so, this heady morning, when the fireworks are kerpow-pow-powing in the tangles of my sweet viburnum…

and the clouds of unrelenting fine perfume are puff-puff-puffing overtime, yanking by the nostrils even otherwise distracted passersby–the dogwalkers, the kids plugged into pods of every decibel, the phalanxes of exer-chicks, the ones who strut in stretchy black, clocking mile after mile…

(i have seen them, yessiree, lift their noses, sniff, and turn their heads, straining to spy the chimney such deliciousness is coming from, as if i’d been baking sugar buns, and the evidence, invisible but un-missable, was wafting to the sidewalk)…

i leave you, then, this morning with little more than the best my bush can offer: a quiet moment’s contemplation, and a simple prayer.

that the full-tilt of this spring’s unfolding has somehow seeped inside your soul, your lungs, your step, your heart. that you, like me, are tingling with the aliveness of the holy, noisy world that comes but once a year. the birds who can’t stop warbling, trilling, yodeling their scales. and blooms who’ve put out every oomph they had.

oh, that we could cup this throbbing, pulsing hour and tuck it in our pocket for when we need reminder. that what was slow in coming, looking doubtful, was really only in the offing. gathering all its force, so it could come like rushing wind and water.

we’re awash right now in sacred promise kept. and tipsy from the knowing that faith came through again.

what’s this, you ask, why all the fuss over something merely blooming? well, it’s only that we’re practicing the art of paying attention. fine season to begin, again, the months when all the world is making such a ruckus, and you can hardly be alive if you’re not struck by something wholly lovely, and rather full of grace. tomorrow likely closes this week of watching one viburnum open up to life…..

if you’re only now checking in, the whole journey, up till today, is in the five days’ meanders leading up to this one….peek in, in any order. heck, depending how you click, you could play a game and make the spring open up and close, go back and forth, or sideways. or simply follow them in order……the way the spicy viburnum mostly did…

she took my breath away this morning, just a half-breath maybe, as if i’d caught her in the boudoir slipping off her tonsil-colored robe. in broad daylight.

as if the curtains were peeled back, and she didn’t give a hoot, really, who stood and watched. she was slipping off the outer garb, the cloak that held her tight, and she was easing into something, well, a little lighter, looser, flimsy. a little shoulders-back, stretch-your-arms, stick-out-your-unveiled-bosom. come close. come take a whiff.

oh, that spicy girl, she’s getting brazen now. altogether dancing with the rhythm of the earth as she picks up the vernal syncopation. chill winds, be damned. we’re going with sunlight here. if cold fronts and pressure zones scramble with the mercury, push it down, only to snap back and let it soar, well, then the blossoms on my blessed bush could not be lesser bothered.

she’s mid-act now. the crescendo in the offing. you can feel it, smell it, sense it. she’s hitting stride. the days of cowering, petals clasped, revealing nothing of her inner beauty, those hours now are past.

she is lost in time and space. whirling. stripping. nudging all her sisters. come, come. join me in this dance. bend back your inner petals, arch your throat, and open wide.

it’s as if we’ve captured that rare frame of utter courage. when what was kerneled, furled, and clenched, is, suddenly, finally, breaking open.

how fine a thing to catch. to witness. to behold.

the life force pulsing forward, inspiring us to do the same.

how often, in the human dance of life, have you caught the moment of unloosing? when someone you love–or you yourself, even–at last, shrug off the tethers, the ropes, that held them–you, maybe–so wholly bound?

i’ve seen it, marveled, gasped.

there was the chilly, breezy sunday just a year ago, when my firstborn, without preamble, got back up on a bike. he’d last been on, the day he broke his neck. and i am telling you, that remounting, months later, was a wobbly one. but as he rode away, pedaling into the wind, my heart was beating double-time, so proud of his un-trumpeted courage.

just this winter past, i watched my little one take on page after page, in book after book, when all the alphabet seemed so scrambled, and made so little sense. he told me one night as i buttoned his pajamas, how all the kids had called him “stupid.” but then he climbed in bed, grabbed his flashlight from the secret place he kept it, underneath his pillow, and tried and tried again. and then, one day, at last, the sentences, they came. he reads now, all the time, hours and hours on end. no end in sight.

i have seen it, yes, in myself, in the simple slathering of almond butter on a slice of bread. in chewing, swallowing, 30 years of fear. in the picking up of fingers, typing on an alphabet of keys, telling stories that had reason to be told.

oh, yes, i’ve witnessed holy courage. the transcendence that comes when the shackles all are finally stripped away.

every time, it takes my breath. holds it very still. saturates me, through and through, with the dawning, knowing, that within us, each and every one, there is the seed of something truly sacred.

it is the essence of our glory, the whole sense of our creation, and we come to know it only if we muster all the strength and courage to step boldly into light and bare our deepest inner truth.

just as that tender beauty up above, whose brave disrobing i took in this very morning, as she went about her business, becoming something rare and bold and holy, just beyond my kitchen door.

have you caught courage in the act? watched someone’s inner beauty finally unfold in sunlight? how has it inspired you?

oh, lord, i wish you could have seen the rains. the kind that come as if a trough, or ten, suddenly is dumped. the kind that come swooshing in at sideways angles. not straight, not down, more like from a firehose. the kind that make you think you’re on the wild seas, and your boat’s capsized, and, gulp, you’re taking water.

i, being defiant to the darkening skies, had all the windows open just last eve. there was a symphony outside, i swear. i was tuned in to station evensong, when, just before their bedtime, all the blessed, breathy birds empty out their lungs. twill. warble. hit notes so high it’s amazing plates don’t break. it’s shocking that no agents book them for the met, i tell you, their song’s so pure, so sure to get on-your-feet ovations.

i didn’t want to miss a stanza, so i dared the looming clouds not to mess with me. (note to self: be no such fool to think that you can stave the rains.)

at once, as i was thwopping garlic-mashed potatoes, the sky went limey green and oddest shade of gray.
that was the wink, i’m pretty sure, from cloud to cloud, to say, “let rip!”

and rip, they did.

crack of thunder marked the start of this decided race, to see which cloud could drop the most, the fastest: in a flash, the world seemed underwater.

pummel. splatter. rain and more rain. doors blew open. a plate blew off a shelf, bounced and, somehow, somehow, didn’t shatter. or even take a ding.

all i could do was stand and hold my open palms across my drop-jawed mouth. oh, no, i cried. this cannot be. my little baby flowers. all the blossoms will be lost. how cruel. i cannot watch.

but then, of course, just like when i try to hide from scary movies, i kept one eye glued on all the gory detail: i witnessed, yes i did, magnolia petals ripped from where they clung to branches, then cascade to puddles pooled where once, not long before, there’d been a plain old garden. i heard, so help me, those falling petals’ final cries for mercy.

i saw daffodils curl their spines and try to shield each other from the unforgiving rains.

i couldn’t even fathom the soggy end of so much hard-won promise.

i had urge to run outside. tie teeny-tiny rain bonnets on every branch and stem. the plastic, see-through sort my grandma wore, when she’d just had her hair done, and didn’t want it sodden.

instead, i stood and prayed.

tried to think just what the lesson this was: hold your breath for blooming. get close to going down. but then, rise with warming winds, and blooms that dare unfurl. only to be shaken, rocked and pummeled. to lose your petals in a fit of angry storm.

some lesson that would be. i might check out and find another school.

but, no, that wasn’t it.

it was dark before the rains stopped. so i could hardly tally all the lost and wounded. instead i went to sleep. tossed and turned. woke up early. tiptoed out to check up on my world.

what you see above is my resilient wonder. oh, she’s been knocked a bit. her hair’s a mess, you’ll see, if you look quite closely. (oh, go ahead, she won’t be embarrassed. she knows she nearly got pureed in the cloud-burst cuisinart.)

but she is wholly there. all seven open throats. just a little sore from all the gulping down of horizontal rain. she is even puff-puff-puffing the early notes of her intoxicating, rare perfume.

and on this dawn, after all that rain and fright, i’d say she’s lovelier than ever. for almost being lost, in the middle of her show.

which, once again, reminds me: hold on. have faith. and never mind a head of tousled locks.

hullo, if you’re just jumping in here. we are in the midst of watching one blessed bloom unfold. of course, this being the cyber-age, most folks would set up fancy-schmancy camera and record it all in one fell swoop, then post it as a vid-e-o. not me. i use this old black box as if it were a simple typewriter with stamps that work at high-speed. i lick the envelope, and click, it lands right in your mailbox. so, of course, we are doing this the slow way. the one-day-at-a-time way. we will watch, until she fades into a memory of this holy sacred spring. (fear not, you who might be yawning, we will interrupt the show to bring you unrelated bulletins as they are filed…..)

there she is, my lung-filling, nose-tickling, olfactory factory. just gearin’ up, she is. those high notes and low notes and dancin’-in-the-middle notes, just starting to chug out her pink-throated chimneys.

she is the thing i’ve been waiting for, tracking like a kook, or some sort of nosey neighbor who can’t keep my eyeballs from peeking over the fence, keeping tabs on all the kitchen drama i can decipher through the flimsy next-door curtains.

we’ve been watching, you and i, and anyone else who tunes in. to this channel called the spring, a serial that won’t stop, despite the weather insults and assorted curveballs.

have you ever been drunk on a smell? inebriated by a perfume? is there some scent somewhere that takes you back, as mere lick of madeleine carried proust?

all i know is for the days when she’s in bloom, when she puts forth like only maybe marilyn monroe has ever done, well, watch out. steer clear. or else you’ll not get one thing done.

you’ll shimmy up beside her. you’ll pretend you’re doing asthma exercises. you’ll breathe so deep, you might be on the verge of bursting alveoli, those little sacs inside your lungs that sometimes are subjected to nasty chemical equations.

just think: those wee balloons devote their days and nights to taking in your world’s unpleasantries–gas burners leaking, cars with mufflers long past time for cleaning, the broccoli burned night after night by some distracted cook.

have those airy soldiers not earned the right, the privilege, the pure honor to spend these sweet few days aswirl in redolence?

my unfurling spice viburnum is not yet in deep full-throttle, so to tell you what you’re missing, i will have to go here on the dregs of my ol’ memory. let’s see, i’d describe her notes as part bubble-bath, part deep-woods, part lady-in-a-crowd-who-makes-you-turn-your-head-and-sniff.

got that?

oh, hmm. darn.

well, then, i’ll try again: part-strawberry-jam-on-buttered-toast, part lily-of-the-valley, part south-seas-island. with, oh yes, a dash of nutmeg.

oh, dang, perhaps i’ll simply have to airmail a sprig for every one of you.

or, maybe, by the time she’s exuberantly in her glory, i’ll have figured out how to record her smell, and send it out from these here pages. (note to technical committee: get on it.)

till then, breathe deeply. you just might catch a whiff. and stay tuned. this live broadcast of my burnin’ bush will not pause for weekends. we’ll be back to bring the story as it unfolds.

and, by the way, is it not enchanting, edifying, and plain old smashing, the difference that a day makes?

oh, that we could always measure progress with such sweep-me-off-my-feet, stark distinctions day-by-day.

again, it might well be the wisdom of the spring to remind us that even when it can’t be marked, or clocked, or framed in ever-changing pictures, there is always the possibility that one day might be so different from the next.

so wholly resurrecting.

what lessons does the spring bring you? and can you smell my sweet viburnum yet?

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….

all around me, everywhere i look, the springtime is unfolding, what’s welled inside is aching to burst forth. cold winds, unexpected plops of snow and other falling things, seem only to make it all, all the more unlikely. but still it doesn’t run away and hide. doesn’t pack up its tightly-wadded buds and tender leaves, return to whence it came.
i am out there, often these days, trying to learn the same.

not long ago i had a dream. it was something filled with hope. i believed it mattered. but over recent weeks and months, a year perhaps, it’s gotten rather dented.

i don’t know, not at all, if it will ever be. or if it’s worth the trying.

if these sound like gasping words, the words of someone wobbling, well then that would be the truth. and i always tell the truth, whole truth, not one word less than.

truth is: for one whole year i rose before the sun. i pulled up a chair and opened up my heart. i typed. i tried to tell fine stories. i tried to make it matter.

i believed.

all around me for a while, i heard the sound of chairs. some came to the table, and told me they were there. made this place quite holy, and filled with shining light. others never spoke a word, but i had to think they cared (sometimes they even whispered so, when no one else was listening). still others, some of whom i deeply love, never even came.

i thought at last i’d found the thing that i was meant to do: to write of holiness, to magnify the little stirrings, to make the homefront count.

but now i’m not so sure. no one it seems is in the market for a book of little stories, of the heart and soul of all these hours we so deeply do believe in. heck, the newspaper where i work all day has told me, twice now, no thanks, not interested, could not care less.

oh, well.

but that’s not all.

of late, that someone who i share a house with has left me in the dust–at least in this here blog department. on a slow day, he tells me, he racks up a mere 600 hits; bemoans it as a dud. i get 100 in a week, and i am rather pleased. in just a month, he’s passed 100,000. most days, he has thousands clicking in to hear his thoughts.
hmmm, hard not to feel a wee bit underwhelming.

i’ve been told you can’t compare the two. well, all right then, but where’d my wind go?

i can’t bear to give it up, this thing i held so dearly. but on the other hand, i think, perhaps my time is better spent merely tending to the ones i love, writing only for myself. telling tales the old-fashioned way, the way the paper likes it: he said, she said.

perhaps a year and nearly six whole months, is more than i should ever think out loud. perhaps you’ve heard too much.

maybe it’s just the lull of spring, when all the juice is pulsing at the branch’s distal tip, or stirring in the chill of underground. and the bloom, still working toward perfection, is not yet ready to reveal its uncompleted beauty.
maybe all i need is time to bask in sunlight, to feel the warming winds.

but today i am that bud above: furled tight. pulsing deep within. not yet knowing when i’ll open up.

waiting, waiting…

have you had dreams you loved, and nearly lost? what kept you believing? how did you weather all the forces that seemed hellbent on crushing you?