Spring Forward
“Gardens (of All Kinds) Grow.” Late March brings this heartswelling truth home to stay.
My grandmother Plum’s Memorial Garden, mostly invisible to the eye but stored in memory and confirmed in photographs, received days of restorative care in early November. No longer choked and tangled, what might the Garden reveal come Spring?
As I approached the Garden this past Saturday, my first glimpse shimmied me with joy. The Garden’s rebirth embodies It All. Far beyond lovely. No longer hidden. Alive. Breathtaking. Breathgiving. It came back after all those years. We’re coming back after one infernal year.
Each of us, also, stirs into bloom. We brighten with daffodils, hyacinths, and ferns…burst open like weeping cherry and plum trees…tap to the chirping from a nest protected by tulip magnolia blossoms. Green shoots from iris bulbs, yellow oozes from forsythia branches, dark red leaves foretell summer roses. Bluebirds dart, hawks oversee, geese frolic. Walkers wave. Runners jog. Frisbees sail. Kites fly.
The unforgiving shock of the longest year begins, slowly, to slip away. Far too many people suffered while frantic and impoverished, sickened and dying. What a rollercoaster of smothered emotions we all endured. A year of yearning and fearing, loving and aching, grieving and hoping, sticking and moving—apart and together, numb and sensitive, lost and found, confused and wise. Such a consuming physical, mental, soulful time out. Like bears shaking loose from prolonged hibernation, we climb toward sunlight, starlight, moonlight. Vaccines deliver delicious possibility. We swim, at first tentatively, toward an infinitely expanding horizon. Scarred and healing.
The pandemic dramatically, mercilessly reminds us what really matters. We open.
I sit for spell, and in the Garden’s spell, on a stone bench, the spot for philosophy classes whenever the weather allowed. Decades of former students join me in spirit, and I picture new classes gathering here come September. French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s fervent reminder feels newly correct: “Cowardice doesn’t pay.” Live life full speed ahead—snatch opportunity. Take a chance—give a chance. Let go—take on. Whisper and bellow—dance and sleep. Never say never—always say ever. Ah, yes, we “dash off toward the future…which is the meaning of tomorrow” (The Ethics of Ambiguity).
Spring forward. Ta-Dum. Inhale—exhale. Heel—toe. Here—Now. Cha-cha-cha. Ta-Dah.
Two pairs to serenade us as we set out.
Stroll along the sidewalk with Quenzhané Wallis. She’ll convince you that “The sun’ll come out ‘Tomorrow’ / Bet your bottom dollar.” Billy Bragg agrees that “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Better Day.” Why? “We’re gonna make it that way.” His and our glasses creep past half full…well-nigh overflowing. “Don’t become disheartened, baby.” Cheers!
Feet up. Head back. Listen to poet Billy Collins recite his enticing “Nightclub.” Everything is possible. “Yes, there is all this foolish beauty” and “we have become beautiful without even knowing it.” Excellent news! Billy finds joy in singer Johnny Hartman’s rendition of “You Are Too Beautiful.”
“And I am a fool for beauty.”
Told with McCarty’s characteristic wisdom, marvel, exuberance, and good will, Leaving 1203 is about navigating that way through. The author draws on all available resources—friends and strangers, food and laughter, life lessons learned in the very house she now empties, and, not least, her newly-inherited West Highland terrier, Billy. McCarty simultaneously learns and deftly teaches the fine arts of remembering, letting go, and holding on to what matters most. She not only finds the way through, she shows the way.
the greatest gift an author could give a reader… lessons of a universally philosophical and existential kind… a touching journey… a welcome, upbeat ride
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