Tag: New Year

Remembering Who You Are

The gap between this garden post and my last spans 15 months of a global era charged with all the circumstances that make my kumbaya soul weep. It’s not inflation, the economy, the pandemic, the immigration crisis, or politics. No. In all things, it’s the pervasive anger, contempt, divisiveness, unwillingness to listen or compromise, and the refusal to forgive.

And so it was a humbling experience recently to find myself in a circumstance that stirred in me the kind of blistering anger and stubborn unforgiveness that I find bewildering in others.

Early on in the said situation, I admitted my shortcoming, explained myself, and apologized. In my mind, it was a relatively minor infraction; poorly chosen words said in the heat of a moment. I fully expected to get past it quickly, especially during the holidays. The other party didn’t see it that way, didn’t accept my apology, and was particularly harsh about it on Christmas Eve. Everyone else in the room pretended not to notice.

Forgiveness is something I value highly and always try to give freely. To have it withheld from me was hurtful. As often happens, hurt turns to anger. I retreated, allowed my resentment to grow, and vowed never to forgive the unforgiver. I stewed about it. I seethed. I allowed it to invade most of my thoughts for the next few days.

Then, on the Monday after Christmas, I received a coincidental reminder from a friend about not letting the heartless world rob you of your joy. It was a quote by writer Kurt Vonnegut that my friend just happened to post on social media. It said in part, “Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.”

Reading that, I realized I had relinquished my power over my inner happiness to someone else. Regardless of how that someone else chose to handle the situation, I had the ability to regain my own peace of mind. The ice that had so quickly formed around my heart began to melt.

“Feeling angry and unforgiving may be a comfortable state of being for someone else, but it’s definitely not for me. This is not who I am,” I said to myself and later to my husband who agreed 100 percent.

I began to look around me for more reminders of who I am. That same day I asked my husband to stop the car so I could take a picture of snowy, cloud-shrouded mountains that looked like they belonged in a fantasy film. The next day I marveled over a colorful sunset between winter storms. The next I found unexpected inspiration in some of the messages (two borrowed from poet Ralph Waldo Emerson) on the front of the Christmas cards taped to our coat closet.

Believe in the magic.

Every hour and season yields its tribute of delight.

Every moment of the year has its own beauty.

Peace and Love.

More wonder, more twinkle, more merry, more joy.

And at the top of the display, a Thanksgiving card that said only, “#blessed.”

The most important reminder, though, were my roses. No. There is nothing blooming in the high desert in the dead of winter. Yet, when I went out on the front porch on New Year’s Day to refill the water bowl we keep for stray cats, I couldn’t help but notice pops of red on the other side of the railing.

There, still clinging to the bramble bush, were several spent roses. The backdrop of snow through tangled canes framed them in a way that reminded me of the Bette Midler song, The Rose. Most people who know the lyrics remember the last lines about the progression of winter, snow, sun, spring, and the rose. But there’s another line elsewhere in the song that means more, especially today.

“I say love, it is a flower, and you, its only seed.”

As this new year begins, I find that I’m oddly grateful for the humbling experience with anger and forgiveness (or lack thereof). I needed a reminder about the power of choosing how we’re going to feel, how we react to forces beyond our control, and how every one of us has the power to plant seeds of love.

We – you and me – are the only soldiers capable of combatting the animosity that is spreading ever wider in our world, our country, our communities, and sometimes in our own social circles. Take my hand and let us skip happily into 2022 with the expectation that we can make a difference by freely scattering seeds of all the goodness that lies within each of us. In the simple words of the holiday cards displayed on our coat closet …

Magic, delight, beauty, peace, love, wonder, twinkle, merry, joy.

With these seeds, we are indeed #blessed.

From Bitter Comes Sweet

Every bitter situation has at least one sweet moment. In this story, the moment came in the form of a golden forsythia.

It was the spring of 2010, and I was about to put the house my mother and I once shared up for sale. We had moved to a larger place about 18 months earlier just as the market started a downward trend. I had intended to sell the smaller house then, but decided to try renting it out in the hope of an economic upswing. Ultimately, I exhausted my resources and was forced to short sell.

My sister and nephew visited from Oregon around the time my tenants moved out. They volunteered to help me clean out the thigh-high weeds that overwhelmed the back yard. On the third day, while silently cursing the renters’ neglect, I stopped in sudden surprise.

“Leslie!” I called to my sister. “Come over here.”

“What are we looking at?” she asked as she peered over my shoulder.

“Mom’s little forsythia. I forgot all about it. I thought it was dying when we moved out, but it’s green and has new growth. I’m digging it up and taking it home.”

My mother was thrilled when I transplanted the forsythia into the garden outside the living room window. She enjoyed its bell-shaped flowers and stunning arches three more seasons before she passed away. It remains a favorite of mine; not just because it’s beautiful, but because of what it represents.

From bitter comes sweet. From the dark enters the dawn. After the winter comes the spring. It’s like clockwork. Good always emerges from a challenge.

Challenging isn’t a strong enough word to describe the last two years of my career. Abominable is closer. Most of it had to do with a disastrous change of leadership, but during that time I was also diagnosed with cataracts and breast cancer. Early retirement was a chance to escape the collective pressure.

Now, looking back on my first year as a retiree, it’s been so much more than an escape. It’s been a new start. A rebirth. I’ve taken enrichment classes, read several books, started work on a novel I’ve been wanting to write for the last five years, brought order back to our overgrown front and side yards, and started this blog. My vision is better than ever, and my cancer hasn’t returned.

I can identify with the little forsythia I rescued from our old house. Like it, I wasn’t dying. Just forgotten. Or neglected. Or overwhelmed. Or a bit of all three. All I needed was a change of scenery to find myself and flourish.

I know there are scores of people struggling like I was — forgotten, neglected, overwhelmed. My heart goes out to each and every one of them. As we count down to 2019, my wish is that everyone in the throes of bitter tastes something sweet, everyone in the midst of darkness awakens in the light, and that winter gives way to a stunningly beautiful spring.

Forsythia 2013