Minor Epiphanies 2.1
On letting flowers be flowers and ducks be ducks
Everyone and their mother is writing about spring right now, but what can I say? Spring is poetic.
Although most of my Canadian loved ones are just packing away their parkas, the wildflowers have been blooming in Texas for the past couple of months. Their rich purply-blue is joined by other flowers — red, pink, yellow, orange, and white. Dotting fields and ditches, these flowers shock me in a gorgeous way.
I have a particular affinity for flowers that fill unexpected cracks — like those along a sidewalk or in a rock. Bursting and blooming in unexpected places, these plants are particularly beautiful for their resilience and contrast to the surrounding cement or stone.
I find myself trying to pause the shoulder seasons. Perhaps this comes from growing up in the Canadian prairies where winter takes such a hold and where fall and spring are gorgeous blips. Each October, I feel unfinished and like I don’t have enough time to carve pumpkins or put up the cobwebs or watch a certain spooky movie. In spring, the Texas weather is mild, and I relish it while bracing myself for the upcoming sweltering summer. Of course, what makes the shoulder seasons so special is their impermanence. The wildflowers will leave, but (I gently remind myself) they’ll return next year. The Bluebonnets will bloom again.
This desire for permanent beauty is such a human one, and I’ve also felt it as I watch animals. We live across from a golf course driving range, and there are two ducks that have recently taken a liking to the range. They used to reside at the pond on hole 18, but now they’ve ventured closer to us. I LOVE watching them. They’re always together, waddling around, quacking away, searching for grub.
However, each time I relish in their presence, my joy is coupled with anxiety. What if one of them gets hit by a golf ball? And then suffers? Or dies? And then the other duck is left alone and sad and . . . on and on and on? I’ve attached my human fear and human grief to these two ducks that are just living life, looking for food, doing their thing. A quotation I keep whispering to myself, trying to counterbalance my fearful thought, is by Wendell Berry: “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” What a gorgeous reminder.
Instead of leaping to the conclusion that one duck will be widowed, I’m trying to pause and be more of a “joyful” duck and less of an “anxious” human. Quack, quack.
This Minor Epiphany recommends:
Nick Offerman on the “On Being with Krista Tippett” Podcast. He talks about Wendell Berry with gratitude and reverence.
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver (of course!)
P.S. I haven’t seen the ducks in a few days, and I’m starting to feel like one of Bart’s People.
I love the quote, and your quack quack