The wind is making fragrant pink blossoms swirl around me as a read a novel in the driveway. "BUBBLES," Joey laughs as he chases the blossoms. Syl and Jack enjoy a rare moment of camaraderie playing in the car (which includes games like "Lick the Hand Sanitizer" and "Smear Blistex on the Windshield, but this I'll save for another post). Chad is planting astilbe and hosta. I breathe in deeply.
Our life is beautiful, enviable, vulnerable. The incredible, intolerable vitality and dynamism that makes up our days would blow your mind. Sure, we have shitastic weekends which rain diarrhea, the bank account is often precariously close to zero, and we struggle to find balance in "picking our battles," but at the end of the day, we unwind with a stiff drink and laugh together. Nothing is too much to handle.
I have goosebumps. I am not thinking about the newness of All Things Spring; I am thinking about what comes next. The heavy wind will carry these blossoms away, then the tree will grow useless fruit that trashes the roof, driveway, and car. And there is the inevitability of winter.
As the petals rain down, I feel like I am twelve years old again, wondering when ubiquitous cancer will visit our family, when we will be stung by an untimely death. I don't think about how lucky or blessed we are, but rather, when is it our turn to experience the kind of personal winter that doesn't end.
So, while you polish off your bottle of pharmaceuticals in desperate sadness after reading this, I have life to enjoy. It is fragile and lovely.
