Waiting to Blossom

The blessing is in the seed.

It’s still not March yet, but the trees are starting to bloom. I was not fully aware of this until recently. London was very cold this weekend, but the sunlight deceived me and I forgot my gloves. Hands tucked into my sleeves, I sat on the upper deck of the bus and wished the woman in the parka three rows down would close her window. Suddenly, we turned a corner, and the entire front window was overtaken by white blossoms. It was as if the bus had changed course — destination: spring. Still, it was far too cold. The bus continued down a road of bare plane trees, and the blooming sycamore drifted behind us. I guess we both were a little too eager.

I am starting to feel the weight of post-university stagnancy. Every day is more or less the same. Sometimes I feel like I am running out of things to say. Other times I feel like I am running out of time. More often, both. Whatever it is, I am in a constant state of tension, like the moment before a flower opens, in anticipation of release. It feels like I’m a teenager at my parents’ house again, taking deep breaths of quiet in my room and listening to the distant buzz of company downstairs. My hand is on the doorknob, but I still hesitate. The knowledge that goodbyes are growing closer is creating anxious energy, like my heart is full of bumblebees, waiting to be released. This is one of many winters of my life, and it feels especially cold and long. I want to set my life on fire. Franny Choi wrote: “Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. / Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in. / I want an excuse to change my life.”

by Fairfield Porter

Stillness can be more paralysing than overwhelming change. I suppose the antidote to that is patience, a willingness to wait. When the trail fades out into a wide field, the best thing to do is sit there and have a rest. Maybe this is your destination. It hasn’t even been long, now, but I am tired of resting. People pass through and continue on their designated trails, but whenever I look ahead, I am overwhelmed and tired. The field has grown boring and empty, so I have resorted to going back toward the familiar. Lately, I have been listening to the playlists I made when I was younger. I’ve captured each season of my life since I was 14. I go through them at random, and though I haven’t listened to many of these songs in years, my body still remembers. Certain songs remind me of this metaphorical spring, periods of my life where I have triumphed something new: driving home from a house party at 4 AM, walking from the bus stop that first lonely autumn of high school, navigating life in a foreign city (the first and second time). Upon each re-listen, I can feel the ghost of the blossom and, simultaneously, the soreness that comes after the bloom. Those moments were all beginnings, but of course, I didn’t know that at the time. Every spring is a beginning.

An excerpt from Muriel Rukeyser’s “Elegy in Joy”:

We tell beginnings: for the flesh and the answer,
or the look, the lake in the eye that knows,
for the despair that flows down in widest rivers,
cloud of home; and also the green tree of grace,
all in the leaf, in the love that gives us ourselves.

The word of nourishment passes through the women,
soldiers and orchards rooted in constellations,
white towers, eyes of children: 
saying in time of war What shall we feed?
I cannot say the end.

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blest, but the
seeds of all things are blest.
The blessing is in the seed.

This moment, this seed, this wave of the sea, this look, this instant of love.
Years over wars and an imagining of peace. Or the expiation journey
toward peace which is many wishes flaming together,
fierce pure life, the many-living home.
Love that gives us ourselves, in the world known to all
new techniques for the healing of the wound,
and the unknown world. One life, or the faring stars.

The blessing is in the seed. I tend to look too far ahead, giving more attention to possibility than presence. I look at the seed as potential for an abundant harvest, rather than a carrier of beginnings. Perhaps the most essential part of growing a plant is nourishing the soil. You take gentle care, tending to fragile roots and stems, until one day, seemingly suddenly, it blossoms overnight. Flowers open with great humility, quiet and hidden, so their beauty is noticed instead of presented. My favorite flowers to buy at the supermarket are spray carnations. They start as buds and blossom over two weeks before they start to wilt. Time passes, and I do my work and make my meals and brush my teeth. One day, I walk into the living room and the sun hits them just right. I realise, in a single moment, that they have all bloomed. Ah, there you are, I think. I’ve been waiting for you. The waiting takes a lot of patience, but it’s also when the vital steps take place — the built-up energy, the final push that breaks open the bud. The longer the wait, the sweeter the fruit. Still, perhaps I am selfish to want the blossoming over and over again, to see a manifestation of hope. Victoria Chang wrote in “Wanting to See”: The peaches blooming / in the dark are saved for the / ground. I confess. I want them.

I saw a friend recently that I hadn’t seen in nearly six months. So much had changed in her life, and I listened eagerly, with no envy but just genuine happiness for a wonderful person who has entered into a life she deserves. When she asked me what has happened in my life, nothing came to mind. None of my changes excites me in the ways I anticipated, and more often than not I feel I’m floating through time, walking towards a big sea but never really reaching the shore. But I think back to that interaction, and I remember the moment I saw her, and she said, kindly: “You look so good!”. I don’t have much to say, but maybe I have a lot to show.

David Whyte’s “Everything is Waiting for You”:

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

So much has changed. Not all for the better, but always towards it. I wonder if the February blossoms regret their early emergence. Even so, if their petals freeze and fall with the chill of the wind, I imagine the trees feel reassured knowing they will blossom again. They live long lives, and perhaps they are comforted by the seemingly infinite springs they have yet to experience. I like the idea that spring is always waiting for me. I just need to get better at tending the soil, preparing for the burst of blossoms, ever so beautiful after a long winter.

From an interview with Louise Glück for Poets & Writers:

PW: You said once that the life of a poet oscillates between ecstasy and agony, and what mitigates those extremes is the necessary daily business of living.

LG: Yes. Friends, conversation, gardens. Daily life. It’s what we have. I believe in the world. I trust it to provide me.

I put so much pressure on achievement because I feel it’s confirmation that my life is heading in the right direction. But I think back to the moments of blossoming, the ones most prominent in the memory of my heart, and realise how wrong that is. It wasn’t graduation, my job offer, or my only acceptance to a literary journal. It’s in the smaller moments: long walks through the park, having a good pastry, calling a friend, driving with the windows down. These things happen quietly, you know. Like winter honeysuckle — they appear when no one is looking for them. I’ve passed by some recently. I’m usually in a rush, bearing the cold, trying to get to my destination as quickly as I can. But their deep fragrance captures my attention, and I turn around in recognition and appreciation of their resilience. I’ve always wanted to bloom like a lily or a sunflower, but maybe I bloom more like a bunch of honeysuckles — clustered, small, fragrant, beautiful.

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Hope you’re all doing well. If you missed last week’s update, I’ve decided to close out the podcast and focus more on my writing. I’ve been feeling a bit disconnected, and need some time to find my voice again. Thank you for your patience, as always.

Spring is coming! Everything is going to be alright.

<3

Tara

(P.S. Here is a long overdue Devotions playlist update, with some nostalgic favorites that remind me of blooming beginnings.)