There’s no real access to this lake, just a small patch of dust in the brush off the shoulder of a two-lane road. One year, on New Year’s Eve, serendipity led me here to see how the sun set precisely into the center of that grove of trees on the opposite side of the lake. Every year since, I’ve come to watch it bid the year farewell. Behind the trees, double train tracks run from East Palestine, Ohio. I walked them one frozen afternoon last February when the derailment halted traffic for a day. It was, I figured, my only chance. Now, as the fresh summer sun dances among the lily pads and licks my arms’ bare skin, I breathe the warm, moist air and remember how the year began here and recall the sharp smells and the cold.
Almost every day now I go check on the berries. They ripen quickly, and it’s always a race with the berry-loving birds. Today, I wasn’t the only one taking their measure. A little spider, its body round as the ripening berries and blending nicely with their coloring, sat on one of their leaves. “You, too!” I say to him as a kind of greeting. We berry-watchers form an instant bond. “Yep,” he says. “Getting closer.” “Any day now,” I agree. We’ll keep a keen eye. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. “Yep,” he answers. “Good luck,” I say as I turn away. “Yep,” he says. “You, too.”
Then, all at once, here it is. Summer, come to put things through their paces – us among them – to lure us forward and if need be, to push us with a shout of her one constant word: “Become.” Look, she says, you’re a seed. Get it? Everything you need to do what comes next is already a part of you. And all you have to do is get out of the way and let it take you exactly where you need to be in order to be exactly who you are. “Become,” she laughs. That’s her work, and that’s her song.
I sit on the porch on this mild afternoon with the birdsong floating on the breeze through the slightly moist air, the sky adrift with soft clouds. A yellow swallowtail pirouettes through the branches of the spruce. I have but one thought: This is Spring’s last day. And look how softly she says farewell as she drifts away, leaving a world of green where none was when she came. The woodlands bow their rustling leaves to her as she passes by. Beyond the meadow, strewn now with daisies, the creek sings. I think this hymn is an anthem of thanks, and of joy, and my heart joins in the song.
Everything is possible. The rain-dreams of trees, for example, can summon rain on a late spring day. The wishes of butterflies open the petals of flowers. Send a loving thought anywhere; it will find its way. Dream of peace, and you will feel it unfold, spacious and free, in your very own heart. Today I heard the sky song of the year’s last iris. Ask anything of the dawn. Everything is possible.
“Just one last thing,” says spring, packing to go. She floats over to the Joe Pye Weed, already over three feet tall, and sweeps a breeze across the tops of them, ever so gently. “Wake up, darlings,” she sings to them, “It’s time.” And the tips of them dance as if they suddenly sensed that they’re alive.
This is one of those little hometown stories you don’t hear much any more. It’s about my neighbor’s son-in-law, Shawn.
Shawn worked as a meat cutter at the big chain grocery store up the road a couple miles. He’d always nod and smile when he saw me. But ahead of his job, the passion of his life was his membership in the township’s Volunteer Fire Department.
Last winter, Shawn took ill and was diagnosed with one of those “turbo-cancers” that have sprung up in the past couple years. They develop quickly and affect different areas of the body simultaneously or in rapid succession.
Shawn fought it valiantly. But last Tuesday the doctors said there was no more they could do and sent him home to die surrounded by his family.
The family set up a bed for him in the living room where he could look out the front door at the neighborhood. There was something special coming, they told him, they wanted him to see.
A few hours later, as a light rain fell from a pale sky, the sound of a fire truck’s siren ripped through the air, followed by another, and another, and another. Trucks had come from departments all around the county. One even came from E. Palestine, Ohio. Shawn hadn’t been able to fight the fire the night of the derailment last winter, but his wife went, fighting along with the rest of the department.
The bond among fire-fighters is strong. They came this night to tell Shawn they loved and respected him, to honor his years of service. The red and white lights of their trucks glistened in the rain as they drove in a slow parade all around his block, sirens wailing.
Shawn watched from his bed, smiling. Two days later, he was gone.
My heart goes out to the family. They’ve been through the wringer the past couple years. But it never got them down.
I was thinking about Shawn and his family yesterday when I came across a short story called “The Black Telephone.” It’s a beautiful little story and worth a read. In one part of it, the story-teller’s pet canary dies. He’s just a little kid at the time and the death confuses him. He goes to a wise older friend. Here’s the excerpt from the story:
I asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?” She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Wayne, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow I felt better.
I felt better, too. For a minute, I imagined a grinning Shawn giving rides to smiling children and puppies in a big shiny fire truck up in some corner of heaven.
You know, it can be a tough world. There’s a lot of pain and sorrow here. Remember to be kind. And when you lose someone dear, take comfort in remembering that there are other worlds to sing in.
Sometimes it amazes me that I get to see this. That there’s a this to see, and not just any this, but this this. And every time it happens it’s new, even if I’m in the same place as the last time and that was just a minute ago. I get to see this. It’s the middle of June and the leaves of the trees are green and full and deep. From this particular one, delicate blossoms cascade, simple and sweet, and the romantic in me sees them as wedding flowers. June, croon, honeymoon. I think that’s how it goes. But here, as I wake from my dream, white flowers cascade. And I get to see them.
When springtime was brand new and the green just beginning to rise from the earth and the tips of the trees, something inside me whispered, “Green is so healing.” I remember thinking it was a good thing that spring would bring so much of it, for we are in such need. This is a world of wounded ones. No one escapes their share of injury, sorrow, loss. But the pain that breaks our shell opens the door to new perceptions. We see what we long for, what matters, what doesn’t, what still remains. We rest, absorbing the meanings, pondering what tomorrow might hold. And as we rest, the green floats in with its abundance of hope, and its breezes full of healing. And we go on, renewed, deepened, and strong. It’s quite the plan, wouldn’t you say?
Every year about this time, yellow flag irises bloom on the far shore of the lake, beneath the pines. Normally, they’re rising from a few inches of water. But this year, when we have gone over two weeks without rain, I could follow the nearly invisible trail the deer make down to the water’s edge where they grow, looking like angels floating on tall stems above the marsh, wild forget-me-nots surrounding them as if to catch and memorize their songs. I approach them slowly, lest I startle them into flying away. Then I stand silent and unmoving before the nearest one, holding my breath, listening as she hovers mid-air. She is singing her golden heart out, and the notes cascade down my spine in waves of electric joy.
