It’s the first day of Spring. I beg of nature blossom the buds. Let us see what the seeds have been planning—artful architects that they are.
I need a little spring time. Sprinkle the days with rain; drops decorating fauna; beading them like ladies’ pearls. April is the month of my birth and so anxiously I press under the earth for that first nascent gasp of air.
It’s been a strange time. There are things I want to say but will wait. Everything has its season—its peak ripeness.
There have been more tears in my recent days than I’d care to explain. I reckon it’s the weather. My insides are getting out their last bouts of winter blues; flushing the system fresh. It is scary to be sad when it’s sunny. That’s why I hated L.A. Come April, well.
Fascinating that under a blanket of ice sleep Spring’s new miracles. My father is a gardener, and so I identify with the species that waits until the frost has passed to begin again.
There are things I would love to say, and will say eventually, because Truth…that audacious thing her… she persists,
she persists,
she persists.
But out of respect of Time I know that now is not the time.
I read a magazine article that purported things about my life that were not true. And while my name made no appearance, well, the purported was there.
And he had called, you know, just a few weeks ago. And the call was seventeen minutes long and we managed to laugh, and I said I didn’t have it in me to be hurt or angry because everything runs its course, and eventually the earth tilts,
and seasons change,
and new life grows.
And behind coffee mugs there lie light plans to perhaps sip and chat (makes you wonder what might be happening in Hollywood) and I didn’t feel the pang of loss, no, I felt relief that my heart was still; calm; unfettered; unaffected.
I will have to address the magazine, but now is not the time. Now we are clearing the way to honor Spring, a more noble and joyous guest–we honor Spring and we honor Time.
Time has allowed me to slow down as she is generous in that way. You can speed up, rush madly, or crawl and still be in step with Time; always there with you, beside you, wherever you decide to go and at whatever pace.
My mother said of mourning: You must respect* the time it takes to heal.
*Respect. Not “acknowledge,” not “understand,” but respect.
I have awarded Time slight ownership over my days—given it free rein. And because of respecting Time I am entering my Spring with a healthy amount of fear and a belly full of ambition. I understand that Time wants to lie in bed a little longer; keep me too long on the phone; make me a few minutes late for work. Time wants me wholly because it knows something I do not know. It holds all secrets of forever; is unquestionable in its wisdom; the un-defeatable against even the most mighty.
And so, as if there were ever an alternative, I lay myself at the mercy of Time, it’s cruelty only appearing in the form of the inevitable. But its tenderness bearing all possibilities.
P.S. There’s More
- The Art of Healing Part IV
- The Art of Healing Part II
- A reader asks why she keeps writing about her ex