Own Your Typhoon

Last year the dogwood didn’t bloom well. That’s just what it was...last year. Digging around its roots to “plant” the three church windows upset it. This year it has recovered to its full magnificence. That’s what it is...this year. I have dug around my roots several times in my lifetime--and others have dug around my roots, not necessarily with my permission. The digging causes stress that it takes a while to come back from. But, like the dogwood, after a settling in period, fullness comes again.

In the news this week: A small town in the American midwest recovers, smaller but stronger, from the tornado that flattened it two years ago. A small town in Japan with a will to live looks toward rebirth from the tsunami that leveled it two weeks ago. Not the expected life. But their life. Wishing it otherwise is pointless.

Some of my favorite wisdom comes from the flight attendant's spiel before take-off. One of those wise bits is "Take care when opening the overhead bin as some items may have shifted during the [journey]." Shifts occur in life. We don't always pay attention and one day we open the bin and look around and realize we are not in the four-color brochure we thought we signed up for. Divorce, illness, lost jobs, tsunami. Bad things keep happening to us. We are in the middle of a typhoon and we can't get out. We growl and cry and ask why yet another obstacle is being put in our path. We scream "FALSE ADVERTISING" and we want our money back. Love in unexpected places, rescuing a garden, new careers. What if they aren't obstacles? What if life is a perfect storm and we are the eye at the center? What if it isn't happening to us, but with us? This is MY life. I will cease to be buffeted about by it when I learn to own it. All of it. The wind that flattens me and the gentle breeze that picks me up and dances alongside me.

As I wander my garden this week, I take special note of the parts of the garden that I have restored and the plants that I have rescued from the overgrowth of ivy and wild roses, over-zealous azaleas, and the enormous gardenia. Two hydrangeas--one transplanted, one left in its home; two Japanese maples that had no room to grow; daffodils, snowdrops, and Japanese iris languishing in the dark under the ivy. All thriving now. But it didn’t happen immediately. They had to recover from their years of smother and re-establish their occupation of the garden. They had become unfamiliar with space and sunlight. They had to adjust to the freedom to be. In one of my gardens, one that holds a special sadness for me, the weeping Japanese maple that I planted in the spot where the rhododendron died, flourishes; layering joy on top of sorrow. Do we experience grief and recovery as interruption, something to just push through; or are they an important part of our life--our perfect typhoon?

I observe the garden residents I have introduced to the garden. The banana tree is especially interesting to me. It rises not unlike the phoenix from the ashes. The new green sprout comes up right through the center of last year's old brown cane. Last year's experience is the foundation for this year's growth. It is a very curious plant; and it gives me pause. I can't wish now dead life experiences had never happened. They are who I am. I am all of them. I observe the Lenten rose and the Carolina jasmine that didn't bloom the first two years after I planted them, but this year they are. And the trillium bulbs that I planted upside down and didn't come up the first year. The second year they came up but didn't bloom. This year they have buds. Life turned upside down has a way of righting itself. But it is not in a hurry.

Many moons ago, after the birth of my first child, I taught childbirth classes. I loved giving the parents-to-be the knowledge they needed to make the bringing of new life into the world the amazing experience I knew it could be. Of course, no two people have the same experience; but I believed that with knowledge they could own whatever path the birthing took. I also had the good fortune to accompany some of them to the birthing room. I was in love. I was pretty sure mid-wifery was not in my future, but for a time I dreamed of being a doula--a helpmate. But that was not to be my path. So last week, when a friend I have never met except through our blogs--hers and mine--wrote a tribute to me in which she called me an "earth doula," that gentle breeze blew across my memory and reminded me of a long-forgotten dream. Out of the dead cane, new life.

Own your typhoon. It is blowing you on exactly the right course. It is quiddity; your essence; your "what it is."


Quiddity

I am mother, daughter, sister
I am all the colors in my garden
I am the peony that doesn't bloom
I am the lorpetalum that does
I am imagination and creativity
I am resourcefulness
I am strength
I am tears
I am trillium patience
I am can't-wait daffodils
I am birds singing in the garden
I am wind--sometimes breeze, sometimes storm
I am the one lonely Lenten rose bloom
I am the full magenta azalea
I am the hawks building a nest together
I am the cooing mourning dove looking for a mate
I am alpine mountain air
I am 35 degrees and 85 degrees, in the same week
I am garden doula
I am friend and sometimes lover
I am all the seasons, round and round
I am the owner of my typhoon
I am life
        this life
              my life