The Pause & the Bloom

Several people in different parts of my corner of the world have commented on the extraordinary spring bloom this year. A friend muses that we must have had the right amount of rain at just the right time. My rhododendrons and lilac have not been so loaded in my memory. If blossoms are an indication, there should be a good apple crop, after an abysmal one last year. The sweet woodruff is a blanket of stars come to Earth to roll out their white light on the ground. Self-rooted heal-all spreads a purple glow everywhere all at once, and goodness knows we could use some healing. I wonder if it would help my knee that has been bothersome—I should learn how to use it—but just looking at it is sure helping the sadness in my soul.

White light: the space within the universe that houses positive energies.
White light can be called upon by anyone for assistance, healing,
and protection from negative energies.

My calendar is far too crowded with commitments that keep me bound to home. (Lest I mislead you, it’s usually just a couple hours a day.) I have done pretty well holding on to one day a week to get out for a hike, though, with more days of sun increasing the likelihood of preferred weather coinciding with the free day. Hiking is, for me, the pause in the calendar and in my anger and worry about what the other Washington is sending down the pike. It’s the chance to find the breath again. 

The weekly writing cafe I co-host at a local coffee shop has been a pause too. It’s a time to be in the company of others, scratching out  words—or just sitting quietly with a favorite espresso drink, people watching or staring into space.

A newcomer to the writing cafe recently told me what he had written about that morning. It was a conversation with his father when he had been a child. He asked his father what he was doing. “I’m doing nothing,” his dad replied. “How can you do nothing!” the boy exclaimed, “shouldn’t you be doing something?” His dad explained, “I’m doing nothing to prepare to do something that won’t be nothing.”

“I’m doing nothing
to prepare to do something
that won’t be nothing.”

Brilliant. How different from my mother. When I was a child, with my sisters and our father in the living room with the Sunday Seattle Times, we would beg our mother (in the kitchen) to join us. My mother always responded that she didn’t have time to read the paper, or a magazine, or a book. My body holds no memory of ever seeing her read. And yet, I’ve been a passionate reader my whole life. It too is a pause for  me. When I returned to life with her when she was 96, she did try to read the newspaper with a magnifying glass, until her vision left her completely. She listened to recorded books for a few minutes at a time, before she was exhausted with straining to hear. When she didn’t have energy for anything, she berated herself for being “lazy.” She had no practice in stillness, in the pause.

There is so much work to be done in these times. I wonder if some aspects of the pandemic was preparation, the pause in busyness we would need for now. I wonder if this season’s extraordinary bloom is Mother Earth’s gift of beauty to our weariness in these dark times. And, as an older, I wonder what my role can be in the here and now. A friend saw a protest sign that read, “WE SHALL OLDER-COME.” I love that! The protests I’ve been to have seemed to be predominately olders. It makes sense, youngers are tired. They are working, raising families, trying to keep their heads above water. They were there with signs too, but frankly, raising good humans and helping their children (who were already hit with the pandemic) be children at play is the work I want them to be focused on.

WE SHALL OLDER-COME!

I can take my sign to protests, and my little act of creative resistance and writing prompts to a coffee shop. But what else? I can bless those who are fighting in the courts everyday. I can send gratitude to the journalists and writers and historians who are telling the true stories. I can pray for those who are being persecuted. I can be a blessing to others, speaking kind words to the grocery clerk, sharing photos from my hikes to remind viewers of beauty in the world. I can be friendly with my yard helper whose politics I know are different from mine and accept his kindness knowing he knows my politics (my protest sign is in my window). I can make hummingbird syrup, again and again. I can practice terraphilia, a term combining Terra (Earth) with philia (love and friendship)—expressing a deep-rooted connection of affect, care, and responsibility toward the Earth and its multitudes of inhabitants. I can send white light into the Universe. I am blooming where I can, and practicing the pause as often as possible. And it’s not nothing.

Be a blessing. Bless others. Love the Earth. Spread white light.
You are enough.

How are you pausing and blooming? Leave a comment, and read what others are saying.

Audiobook Pub Day, May 13!

The audio version of Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver is now available wherever you purchase audiobooks!

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