~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
It’s not easy being March, straddled
between winter and spring, subject
to moods that fluctuate from dark
to bright, from warm to freezing in less
than a day and not one mood enduring.
Nevertheless, you get to usher in spring
and to return the singing of birds to the land.
So when it rains today, I’ll choose to see
the drops as tears of joy. It is, after all,
the season of birth, when something
that never was before arrives,
and changes everything.
When spring rides in, they tell me,
wherever her pony steps, coltsfoot grows.
I believe them. The pony’s step is light.
It flies more than it prances, touching ground
just here and there, when spring pauses
to take in the view or to plant special flowers.
Years ago, I found one of her favored spots
and I return each year seeking evidence
of her visit. This year, I confess, I climbed
with apprehension. Last fall, workers dozed
a path at the very edge of the woods
that circle the reservoir, exactly where
the coltsfoot has always grown. Would spring
still pause here? Could coltsfoot rise
through this packed clay? The leaves
were wet. I had to climb carefully.
Then, half way up the hill, I stopped
to gaze up its slope, and there they were,
patches of them, little sun-coins, beaming
yellow rays right into my heart. Coltsfoot,
I beamed back at them, whispering their name.
She was here! She was here!
Sometimes, when I’m just bobbling down the stream, living my ordinary life, I’ll wonder to myself, “What shall I write in this week’s Sunday Letter?” This week, I kept hearing the faint whisper of the word “encouragement.”
Well, heck yes! Of course I want to encourage. Who couldn’t use a bucket or two of that nowadays? I mean, look around. It’s a wreck out there. And sometimes the wreck even spills into our very own lives.
But where to start? Maybe, I thought, I could get some ideas from my quotes file. When I opened it to “Encouragement,” the very first one I read, a line from a Karen Moning novel, made me laugh: “It’s just that in the Deep South, women learn at a young age that when the world is falling apart around you, it’s time to take down the drapes and make a new dress.”
What wonderful advice! Think about what it’s really saying. If you’re going to face a world that’s falling apart, you need to shore up your self-confidence, by remembering who you are, and wrapping yourself in that knowledge.
That brought me to a second quote from my file: “She remembered who she was, and that changed everything.”
And just who are you? One of those most complex of creatures – a human, being here, wherever here is, doing the best you can with what you got. That’s one of the things that identifies us as human, I think. We keep trying to do the best we can with whatever resources we can discover.
Sometimes those resources can seem mighty slim. Sometimes they seem no match for the wreck outside the door. We all get discouraged and bruised along the way. We make mistakes, take wrong turns. We underrate ourselves and our resilience and ingenuity. But that’s exactly when we need to pull down the drapes and whip up a smarter costume. Try on a smile. Shine your shoes. Straighten your shoulders. So far, after all, you have managed to get from one moment to the next, all the way to this one, right? You have momentum on your side, not to mention buckets of tools and talents, and, of course, the life force itself.
Long story, but I found myself telling a friend the childhood tale about the little red engine that had to climb a big, steep hill, pulling a big, heavy train behind him. He was undaunted, this brave little engine, and he kept saying to himself with every turn of his wheels, “I think I can, I think I can,” until he made it all the way to the top.
I think you can, too.
I’ll leave you with one final quote from my file by singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. It’s a good one to remember. “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.”
Just keep going. And enjoy the journey.
Warmly,
Susan
You’re shining so boldly,
and I was so glad to see you,
that at first I didn’t notice,
little daffodil, that you felt shy.
I understand. You’re the first one.
There’s no one here to tell you
that you are unfolding perfectly,
and that you will love it here,
where rain and sun dance
and stars sparkle at night
and a gazillion green things
grow all around you. You’ll see.
Soon, your friends will open, too,
and you will tell them that
they are doing it perfectly,
and all of you will boldly shine.
I’m washing dishes when I spot them—
another spring surprise, suddenly arrived.
They seem to make their campground
in the same space every year, half way
down the south hill. I never see them
marching into place. But you can tell
that’s what they were doing. They come
before the grasses and the rest of the green
and settle at the base of the ancient maple.
There they stop, raise their lemon-lime flags,
and laugh until the sound grabs you: Hello!
I dry my hands, pull on my boots,
and climb the hill to greet them—today’s
gift—to let them know I heard them
shouting out their song and to share
with them this draft of welcome joy.
Rain fell all day. But some time after noon
it paused, as if to get a breath, to replenish
its clouds. I threw on a jacket and boots
and set about searching along the path
that leads beneath the quince at the base
of the southern hill. I’m on the lookout
for baby ferns. Not yet, I see. Not yet.
But look at that chorus of stems standing
at attention on that heap of moss, raindrops
dripping from their green hats. And there,
a patch of those round little mushrooms,
and the bud beginning to swell on the quince.
Then, as I turned to go back to the house,
I saw them – Spring Beauties! I blinked
in disbelief. They unfailingly surprise me,
appearing before I expect them, tiny fairies,
so delicate, so filled with light and grace.
“I love you, springtime,” I whisper to the woods
and the sky, fully trusting them to deliver
my message just where it should go.
“Even in rain, springtime. Even in the rain.”
I had to come see you on this most special day.
I think of it as a kind of birthday after all,
a day to celebrate your beginning anew.
And look how you’re dressed for the occasion!
I like the reds, the way they rise, swollen with life,
and the textures, lacy, and curled. Soon, the songs
of frogs and blackbirds and visiting ducks will fill
the air, and the wondrous greens will unfold.
But today is the first page of the next edition
of your ever-renewing story, dear Wetlands.
Happy Spring! Just look how you’re dressed!
This is what lets me believe
in Yes, in heaven, in holding
to hope even when all seems lost.
This: spring’s first, triumphant flowers.
On spring’s first day, a flock
of tiny leaf-birds appeared on a vine
that mere days ago was wooden
and bare. And there, they spread
their green wings to the sun, singing
with joy. And the sleeping vine awoke
and whispered, “Stay, little leaf-birds!
Let my heart be your home!”
And the leaf-birds, softly laughing,
answered, “Thank you, dear vine.
Your love is the reason we’ve come.”
My eyes find the tree’s upper limbs,
a symphony of sorts, played against
the dappled March sky as the morning’s
rains float off to the west. For a while
I cannot move or think. I can only stare
and breathe the cold, moist air.
When I return to myself, my mind
is reeling as it surveys all it must
have taken for this tree to be dancing
exactly here, exactly now, and for me
to have traveled my own long road
making all the unlikely choices
that led me to this gift,
exactly here, exactly now, and how
it was exactly what I needed.