HOME ›› ABOUT ME ›› STORIES & OTHER WRITING ›› MY BOOK

Posts Tagged ‘spring’

“The bees are flying. They taste the spring.”

20140329-175745.jpg

The title of this post is the last line in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Wintering.” It’s a rather dark poem, but the last line for me is always hopeful and optimistic — though, of course, it’s shadowed by Plath’s own biography and tragic end.

Still, let’s go with it. After a rather long, dark, dismal wintering, the hive of life is coming back to life. Around here the snow has finally melted in my driveway, and I can see…dirty concrete! After months of pure snow and ice, I’ll take what I can get. I finally got to drag out my pots of plants and mucked around, repotting and replanting, ready to see if my silly little gardening experiments turn out okay this time.

The days are longer, of course, and the sunlight itself seems stronger every day. The first relatively non-freezing day — a rather balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit, whoo hoo! — I went for a walk by our local river, braving blustery winds that blew the hair elastic off of my French braid. Large broken-up sheets of ice floated on the river, which had little waves cresting because of the winds. Not a cloud in the sky, though, and everyone else on the path — hardcore runners, birdwatchers, others like me who just wanted to get outside for a bit — smiled and said hello at one another. I think we were all just happy to be out and about.

I’ve been riding more lately, trying to get back to the weekly schedule I had before. I worried I would lose whatever skill I’d built up painstakingly over the past year, but in a strange way, I feel more in control and powerful than ever. My seat feels secure, solid, like nothing can shake it. I can’t help but think that’s related to everything happening in my life earlier this year which can be summed up as just “AARGH TUMULT.” I take such real pleasure in the calm and focus of a good ride, as well as the unspoken yet deep-feeling connection with the horse I’m on. I’m looking forward to more rides in the spring. I’m thinking of going back to English riding, but I will be content just to canter lots and feel the wind in my hair.

Spots of optimism are popping up: new opportunities, new stories waiting to be told, new phrases waiting to be placed into poems, new spring dresses to be worn, new perfumes to try, new events to look forward to and new friends to make. I’ve temporarily started up NOGOODFORME again — time to freshen up a key part of my work portfolio — and it’s fun to use that serious-frivolity slumber party part of my brain again. There’s just a nice gush of creative energy happening in my life now, coinciding with a deepening of love and support. My novel is so close to being finished. Of course, that’s just the beginning of a whole other process, but it feels good to wrap up such a huge endeavor.

Yes, I’d say Sylvia had it right: “The bees are flying. They taste the spring.” I only wish she had stayed around to see the spring herself. But you and I are here, and I hope the new season unfurls for you in such a lovely, gentle way.

20140329-175823.jpg

What to Do With the Remains Of Spring?

I cannot believe it is almost June. Almost halfway through the year! Time: flying by, a whir of days, activity, thoughts, runs in the park, buying groceries, playing auntie, petting tiny Shetland ponies, writing and revising and proofing and re-proofing and re-re-proofing. Time seeps away; time piles up. I can’t keep track sometimes, no matter how much I journal, Instagram, meditate.

This year I want to remember that summer is a time to slow down. Springtime has been so busy: I’ve been gearing up to publish my collection of essays soon, and while I thought this would be a quick, easy project, it has not. I’m embarrassed at my naivete, actually! But the long-winding journey is ending soon, and soon I will hold a final proof in my hand, and soon I will approve it, and soon it will be done, done, done and out, out, out and hopefully some of you will read it and it will live a long, thriving life as a book in the world! I’m so excited, nervous and relieved. Relieved, like a thing that has been clogging up my master to-do list will finally be cleared off. Relieved, because my inner sense of integrity and honor and keeping my own word to myself will be appeased. Relieved, because now I have time to work on new things! But in a nice, slow, leisurely way. Not in a push-push-push, striving kind of manner, but one where I take pleasure in seeing ideas unfurl into concrete shapes, and savor the twists and turns. Summer is savor, and I can’t wait. Here is how I’m inching into the season, while winding down the spring.

(more…)

Printed Pantsapalooza

So one of the unanticipated effects of a long winter was that in March I went on a bit of a fashion bender. After a pretty abstemious January and February, it’s like the floodgates opened and suddenly everything on the sales rack looked good to me. Neon! Weird abstract prints! Lime green jeans! It was like having the shopping equivalent of beer goggles.

Luckily the old habits of caution and discrimination are inculcated enough, and most of my enthusiasm was contained in the dressing room, satiated by taking plentiful amounts of dressing room try-on pics. (You know the ones I mean.) But the will was broken when it came to these printed pants. They are a bit 70s golf lady, but I do not care. I got immediately inspired when I brought them home and tried them on with a zillion different tops. It’s a couple of months later and I still love them. (Yay!) My 5-year-old nephew calls them my “cheetah pants” and gives them two thumbs-up because they “make him dizzy.” (Dizziness is a sought-after quality by most little kids, if I remember.) My beau gets a kick out of them as well. Even my mom loves them! Everyone wins! Most of the time I’m very intransigent when it comes to clothing and pretty low-key, but I’m glad I took this fashion risk and went out of my comfort zone a bit.

I am usually a jeans kind of girls, or I wear leggings on one of those days when I’m running around and I know I’m headed for a run or a dance class or the gym or riding and don’t feel like changing so much all the time. These are very much “today I’m going to play” kind of pants, and I like that about them as well. It’s all too easy for the days to be packed with industry, hard work, tenacity and effort — so it’s nice to put on clothes in which all I can be is playful. Plus: prints! How can you not love prints?

Sweetness Follows (A “Life in Pictures” Kind of Thing)

Moving into spring this year was a little difficult, because winter was so long and a spat of Daylight Savings-induced insomnia derailed me a little. But now I wake up in the mornings just as the light streams into my house, casting temporary paintings of light and shadows onto the walls.

I like going outside in the morning, when the air is brisk and the light is clear. It’s refreshing — something about the snap of it clears out the head-down, shoulders-up huddle you develop during the cold winter.

You look up and suddenly seem more alive to the odd yet strangely riveting sights around you, like how a garage can frame a tableaux. Everything becomes a frame and tableau.

(more…)