Waiting and letting go
"Because of the enormous wind and rain we have had, a lot of the daffodils have blown down, though not as many as I had feared. But the truth is that their peak is past. We shall have them for another week and then they will be gone. It seems quite unbearable but that is what spring is--the letting go. The waiting and waiting and waiting, and then the letting go."
--May Sarton, Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year
This passage leaped out at me because it is also how I experience spring: the waiting and waiting for those first spears of crocus leaf, the white blossoms of snowdrop, the electric blue of glory-of-the-snow. The first subtle stars of witch hazel in an otherwise bleak landscape. At the beginning, it's easy to keep an inventory of everything as it blooms, because the flowers are so few and so long anticipated. And then the waves start--daffodils, hyacinths, forsythia, lesser celandine, the earliest cherries, redbuds, weeping cherries, dogwoods, bluebells and wood poppies, violets, azaleas, lilacs, the late cherries--all of them brilliant for such a short time, often peaking within a week. I welcome each wave and let it go, reluctantly. And then the trees leaf out and the longer-lived, less showy flowers such as dandelions and clover bloom, and we settle into summer.
In the coming weeks, in my part of the country, the spring watch will start. There is always some adventurous early flower that comes out during a winter thaw and gets frozen in the bud (usually forsythia and cherries, but once I saw daffodils blooming on New Year's Eve). Otherwise we will wait and wait and wait for the waves of spring, and then we will let each one go in turn.
My writer friends may also recognize a pattern in that: waiting and waiting and waiting--for ideas, for feedback, for publication, for responses. Letting go--of expectations, of ideas that didn't work, of manuscripts that didn't find readers, of successful stories that nonetheless cannot be dwelt in forever. Turning to the next wave, for its unique beauty, for however long it may last.
--May Sarton, Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year
This passage leaped out at me because it is also how I experience spring: the waiting and waiting for those first spears of crocus leaf, the white blossoms of snowdrop, the electric blue of glory-of-the-snow. The first subtle stars of witch hazel in an otherwise bleak landscape. At the beginning, it's easy to keep an inventory of everything as it blooms, because the flowers are so few and so long anticipated. And then the waves start--daffodils, hyacinths, forsythia, lesser celandine, the earliest cherries, redbuds, weeping cherries, dogwoods, bluebells and wood poppies, violets, azaleas, lilacs, the late cherries--all of them brilliant for such a short time, often peaking within a week. I welcome each wave and let it go, reluctantly. And then the trees leaf out and the longer-lived, less showy flowers such as dandelions and clover bloom, and we settle into summer.
In the coming weeks, in my part of the country, the spring watch will start. There is always some adventurous early flower that comes out during a winter thaw and gets frozen in the bud (usually forsythia and cherries, but once I saw daffodils blooming on New Year's Eve). Otherwise we will wait and wait and wait for the waves of spring, and then we will let each one go in turn.
My writer friends may also recognize a pattern in that: waiting and waiting and waiting--for ideas, for feedback, for publication, for responses. Letting go--of expectations, of ideas that didn't work, of manuscripts that didn't find readers, of successful stories that nonetheless cannot be dwelt in forever. Turning to the next wave, for its unique beauty, for however long it may last.
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