Giddy Springtime

There were warm spells all winter, but this is indisputable, this surprise of blooming fruit trees, medians filled with crocuses, the juniper pollen billowing across the valley like smoke from a forest fire in the Jemez, and all night rains falling gentle as can be over the blossoming city.

There are baby chicks in the bathtub peep peeping and tomato seedlings to carry out every morning into the sun. There is a little girl who plucks the tiny roma sprouts and taps the dirt off the root threads and pops it in her mouth, and another girl turning seven in just days telling me long stories like the Goose Girl over dinner, which she calls Odious Beans.

In the midst of all this I am learning to meditate. For years I’ve thought to myself  it would be a good thing to do, especially if I ever got cancer or was a stressed out corporate executive. Since I was neither of these things (thanks be), I contented myself with reading books about mindful parenting, zen gardening, and writing with a wild mind. These things have a way of accumulating over the years, and let’s just say that when I heard about a class in Mindfulness Meditation and Stress Reduction for Parents my turn on the Zafu had come.

Did you know that it turns out the point of meditation is not to roll on waves of bliss while sitting in the presence of God after all, and that actually there is no point except to be aware of the breath. Or so says my teacher. In fact, one source I have seen calls the rolling on waves of bliss a side effect of relaxation and suggests you ignore such “odd sensations” and go back to following the breath. I can just say it’s a good thing I never read that particular yogi before beginning my practice! Nonetheless, it is lovely to be breathing and sitting still with or without waves of bliss, because it’s spring.

There is one pleasure I’m anticipating most of all: Peeling the row cover off my south wall garden to see what greens made it through the winter. With luck there will be speckled romaines, red oakleaf, rainbow chards, and kale. This garden hasn’t been watered, much less glimpsed, for months. But I know it’s there, rising in the long light and warmth of the days. I know this because I can see them pushing the row cover up, my little kales and chards and romaines.

I’m feeling a whole lot like those greens today. So much has been slow growing under cover for the winter, for my seven years mothering, for each of these good thirty-three years I’ve had. And the cover is lifting. What will be revealed?

I can almost feel the giddy wave of springtime bliss pulling me under, so I’ll rest now and watch the miracle of every breath coming and going, and surely there is something of God in that. That, and the greening trees.