Glory

I wrote this a year ago today in my Penzu​ journal, under the title "Frozen". Sorry, it's long, but seems so apropos to the grieving.

It was one of those moments I wished I could freeze in time, but of course one can't. I remember once, standing outside the gates at [my college] with [my college boyfriend], the light just so, at the end of the school year, I guess, and we were saying goodbye for the summer (pretty much forever, as it turned out), and I wanted to freeze-frame that one. Of course I'd done it before -- bound to have -- and certainly have done it since, but I was conscious of the effort then and kind of startled by it. Daisy and the butterfly was another one such moment. The bluebird in the snow on the branch of the blooming dogwood in our yard yet another. The eagle in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area during my Outward Bound vision quest. The foxes barking when I was camped with Daisy at her first hunting trial. 

This morning it was the snow. It was piled high on all the branches, which were stark against a grey sky. The cardinals were at the feeder in back and in the dying dogwood tree, the male a brilliant red against the white snow/black bark/gray sky, the only real color around. It was like the winters we had when I was growing up in NC. I feel blessed to have had not one, but two good snows this winter, when with global warming I've had such a sense of loss and sadness that I'd probably never see another one. And now to have two! 

I was glad to have been up to see it before it started to melt, which it is doing pretty rapidly. I was sorry to see the sun start to peek through. But as Cheryl Strayed wrote towards the end of Wild, "There was no way to go back, to make it stay. There was never that." 

Just being present for what is, as it is and as it changes, is the hardest thing when what I want with every cell in my body is to go back, to make something or someone stay, to freeze a moment, to hold on to the feeling of wonder and joy that I had this morning when I first opened the drapes and looked out on the magical world. 

And as I typed those words, feeling sad and empty, the phoebe flew into the yard for the first time in days (if not a week or more), and I felt that same surge of joy again to see him, and tears came to my eyes. He's so beautiful today: He fills me up all over again. 

One glorious thing gives way to another. 

So although I can still hear Paula's laugh, see the puppy Daisy lunging at the end of her check cord for that brilliant yellow butterfly, feel that bitty animal scampering over my sleeping bag that chilly August night on Lake Superior, it is over. There is no way to go back, to make it stay. There never was.

--And as I was reading this, and thinking that I have to believe that one glorious thing will go on giving way to another, as has been true time immemorial and forever shall be, that the good life isn't over because Mr. Simply died and I'm getting old, and not having much faith in any of that, a Sharp-shinned Hawk flew into the yard, landed right outside my window for a few seconds, looked right at me, and flew on. 

Glorious.

Simply,

To Spring

My first--and probably last--crocus popped up this weekend, which got me to thinking about Spring and about the passage of time. I planted dozens of them in the woods out back of the house over a quarter of a century ago, and every Spring, like clockwork, they'd bloom among the leaves and the pinestraw and the little wild strawberries. But over the years they've been trampled by dogs and a kid, or eaten by squirrels and chipmunks, until I really didn't think there were any left. This little fella was a pleasant surprise Saturday morning.

I have photos from one Easter in the late '80s that shows we used to have a green lawn out back, too (but see kid, dogs, above), and a half a dozen flowering dogwood. Then Simply, Jr. grew up, four of the dogs went over the Rainbow Bridge, and anthracnose got the dogwoods.

Out front, we had this spectacular cherry tree that every Spring was a mass of pink blooms that seemed almost bigger than our little house. I once looked out my window to see it filled with Cedar Waxwings passing the petals to each other to eat like so much pink cotton candy. I remember when that tree arrived, so young and small it fit in the backseat of a car. We barely got it in the ground before a thunderstorm rolled in, and because we forgot to stake it, the wind tilted it a bit, and it has remained just a little off center ever since.

The person who gave us the tree and the person who helped us plant it that day are both dead, one of cancer and one of a heart attack. And after nearly 30 years the tree, too, has begun to die. The state extension people came out and said it was a fungus in the soil and that there was nothing we could do. Each Spring its blooms have gotten more sparse until this year it probably won't flower at all, for the first time in our life together at this house. Although it will break my heart to do it, we'll most likely have to cut it down this summer.

So much changes in 25 years. For one thing, Mr. Simply has gone bald. The daffodils my grandmother gave us to plant in the garden of our new home have gotten too old to bloom any more. And since those crocuses went in the ground, two dear friends and neighbors have gone in the ground, too, as have Dad's parents, Mr. Simply's parents, and my sister-in-law.

And we're getting older as well. This morning I noticed for the first time that I was shuffling--shuffling!--down the hall to the kitchen.

I eventually got my joints unlocked, though, and headed off to work. I had to stop the car halfway down the block to wait for a pair of cardinals having sex in the middle of the road.

So here's to Spring. . . and to the passage of time. As the old joke goes, beats hell out of the alternative.

Simply,