It’s odd, the memories that a sight can trigger. When I saw the newly opened tulip In my garden, for instance, glowing orange and magenta and pink and gold, at first I just stopped, and held my breath and stared, mesmerized by its hues. Then it came, the memory of the teacher on the first day of art class telling us that some things are beautiful, some not. As an example of the latter, she said a mix of pink and orange could never be considered beautiful. I dropped the class. Had she never seen a sunrise? Or the petals of a tulip?
It’s not the circumstances that matter. So what if, at any moment, the world may explode? It has nothing to do with me, with now. The trees are dancing in green hurrahs and the earth is covered in flowers. The mammoths, they say, died eating daisies. If the world ends in ten minutes, I shall leave it dancing with joy.
Frost warnings went out last night. Again, tonight, it’s a possibility. As I walked across the lawn, I thought it felt more like March than April. Wait. What was that? A black netting hanging from the jonquil. I walked to the front of the garden, then stopped, unbelieving. A swallowtail! So soon! And in this cold! Oh, Springtime, every single one of your gifts comes as such a delightful surprise.
Because they could taste spring’s mild air even when the world was frozen, their sap rose.
Because they spent the long winter dreaming that robins built nests in their limbs, dreaming that the world was green and that sunlight danced warm and golden all around them, buds formed at the tips of their branches.
Because their dreams were so vivid that they heard the songs of summer winds even as the snow piled around them, their roots grew deeper, their trunks added rings.
Because they believed in springtime, their leaves sprang forth.
I woke just before dawn yesterday morning. The birds hadn’t even begun to sing. I’m not an early riser. Yet here I was, wide awake. I made a cup of coffee and took it out to my front porch to experience the beginning of the day. As I took my first sip, I noticed a faint ribbon of pink just above the eastern hills, gradually growing brighter. Looking directly overhead, I saw that the sky had gone from dusky gray to a light blue graced by soft clouds. When I looked down again, a whole panoply of color was lighting the sky—pale gold, coral, robin’s egg blue, soft lavender. And as if to acknowledge the coming of another day, the birds woke and began their morning chorus.
I let myself drink in the peace of it. The world has been such a brutal place these last few weeks, its violence and mayhem loud and sickening. Yet here I was, enveloped in birdsong and sunrise, sipping freshly brewed coffee. I felt lucky, and grateful, and kind of humbled to be so blessed. But I wasn’t alone in that. More of us live unscathed by mayhem than are directly touched by it.
Most of us live our ordinary lives, attending to our daily routines and chores, relating in our usual ways with family and coworkers and friends. We share our smiles, and sometimes our tears. We share our rituals, our news, our opinions, our gossip. We play together. We squabble. We make up. All of us. All over the world. And isn’t that beautiful!
That we can go on, determined to live ordinary lives in the face of extraordinary times, is remarkable.
I read a couple paragraphs by American historian and professor Howard Zinn this week. He said:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.”
I get the impression that Zinn is thinking of acts of high bravery and daring when he talks about how magnificently we can behave when tested. And indeed we can. But I think courage is more than the extraordinary act performed at great risk. I think it’s also the determination to go on living ordinary lives as well as we can even when the world seems upside-down. Our small acts of everyday generosity and compassion, consistently performed despite it all, are testimony to our courage.
Mark Twain had this to say about courage: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.“
When we live our ordinary lives in the face of what seems almost omnipresent threats, we are being brave. By refusing to surrender to fear – however loudly and persistently the media screams about the world’s evils – we tell the world that it cannot take the best of us. We will behave magnificently, holding to the dignity of our ordinary lives. And sometimes we will pause to recognize that despite it all, we are surrounded by extraordinary goodness and beauty, and, sometimes, when we are bathed in sunrise and birdsong, we will savor long moments of transcendent peace.
Wishing you a week of courageous, ordinary, everyday life.
Everything has its own dance, sings its own song. Listen with your body, with your heart. Feel the way things touch you with the rhythm of their being. Pay attention to the way that they resonate inside you. Ask yourself about the taste, about the quality of sound a thing creates. Take the flower of the quince, for example. Notice how its gentle sweetness moves in a poignant waltz. Close your eyes and feel its song moving you, almost to tears.
Just days ago, the peonies poked through the soil, their straight red shoots growing so fast you could almost stand there and watch them add inches. Then their leaves opened, eager and bold, and they, too, could hardly wait to add length and width to their size. Yesterday rain came, and they drank as if they were sailors and how they reeled right there in the yard, whooping it up with such boisterous joy that they almost scared the blackbirds.
Under the overcast sky hauling in its rain from the west, the colors were subtle, as if this stretch of wetlands was a pastel dream into which, by magic, I had suddenly arrived. Riding on the warm, moist air that brushed my face was the sound of a distant train playing bass to a chorus of hundreds of frogs. Then raindrops woke me and I ran for shelter through waves of grass and dandelions, frog song in my wake all the way home.
They were still asleep when I found them, and although I was giddy with relief that they were here, I quietly knelt beside them and gazed at them. What amazing dreams they must have as their protective leaves open, exposing them, for the very first time, to light! Let them dream. Tomorrow we will have more rain. Feel the moisture, the dance of the air. Wonder about it. Soon you will feel the light of morning’s sun, and when you open and look around the world will be beyond anything you dreamed. And you, sweet ones, will hold its beauty in the pastel cup of your being. Meanwhile, sleep. Sleep through the coming rain.
This is what got me through the winter, the hope of one more spring, exactly like this one, with its boisterous green and ten thousand spring beauties climbing the hill, afternoon sunshine brushing them with its light. And here it is. And here am I, my hungry eyes drinking it in, my face grinning, my heart thumping out a mantra of thanks.
