Most of you know that I’m freshly grieving the death of Arlen Lawson, probably-certified genius writer/musician and, more to the point, a deeply close complicated friendship. I wake up surprised that I can see him so vividly in my mind’s eye, and I think, “It’s been long enough, I should write to you,” then I remember that I can’t. That’s a large part of my consciousness now and for the foreseeable future. But my California years taught me the power of something that fortifies my spirit through anything, everything, and has even been the thing to live for in darker periods: wildflowers. I am fanatical about wildflowers.
For reasons I’ve been advised not to discuss publicly, much of my semester has been a trial of the spirit. (Did that pique your interest? I’m basically surviving on shamelessness every moment that I can.) One miraculous day, though, winter was over. Our front yard and surrounding trees — we live in the middle of nowhere, remember — were lush, green, enchanted-garden green, and — this made me breathe more deeply than I have all year — gorgeous purple flowers were suddenly everywhere. My hippie upbringing tends to show itself in the presence of nature, and so without missing a beat I said, out loud, “Thank you, flowers. I’m so glad you’re here. You help make me stronger.”
I needed that strength, because the paradox of grief, of course, is that it’s personal. The world’s shifted on its axis, but few people know that, because there’s a whole-ass life going on outside of the one we’re living, and in it we have responsibilities and obligations and legitimate reasons to “leave it at the door” during working hours, “it” being all the uncomfortable questions we’re asking, the bigger-than-the-office feelings we’re feeling, the urge to scream, etc. Last Wednesday, work demanded everything I had. I emerged with truly nothing, almost surprised that I could walk home. I emerged, in fact, so laughably deflated that when two different people called out my name at different points I turned around and said “WHAT?” as though expecting yet another demand. But they were just saying hi. Like you do! When you see someone you know! Right? Nothing. Wrong. With. That.
When I got home, the landlord was mowing our front yard. And that meant that he was obliterating our wildflowers.
“My flowers of life are being murdered,” I told Ian, perhaps rather dramatically. I could write a seperate essay on the oppressive American insistance that wildflowers are weeds, but others have written better-sourcedly than I can about the inherent evils of suburbia, founded on racism with its insults to aesthetics being icing on the poisonous cake. Right then, it was a symbol I didn’t need. “I’ve literally thanked those flowers for being alive,” I said. “Now they’re gone.”
I never got a photo of their transforming our yard, but this is what they look like, courtesy of a quick internet search:
Last weekend, when I got the horrible news of Arlen’s death — a phrase I still can’t believe we have cause to write, a phrase that doesn’t feel real — I got nothing done other than my taxes. I spent last week catching up, and had to write to one of my professors to explain why I was asking for an extension on a (thankfully minor) assignment. I told him everything, not just about Arlen and about my packed and weirdly emotionally taxing shift at work but also about the wildflowers and what they meant to me. In his reply, he said, “I’m sorry about your friend, and about the emotional hardships at work, and about the flowers.”
The last part, I’m grateful to say, made me smile: I’m sorry about the flowers. I wish I could set a professional rule: We can only have a working relationship if you genuinely understand why it’s meaningful that the wildflowers are gone. You will have no definition of authority over me unless you can say, from the depths of your soul, I’m sorry about the flowers.
I want to go somewhere with this, make a point. But I’m grappling with new understandings of the extent to which we make meaning of our lives, meaning isn’t just there. Sometimes I think it’s kind of funny that we do that, make meaning. Usually I understand why we’re collectively driven to, but at this precise moment I feel like the birds have the right idea. Right now they’re calling out from various perches and being none too polite about it. Once they get what they want out of their seductive and sometimes repetitive songs, they’ll just go about life. If they have to suffer as the neighbors’ chickens did and watch a hawk decapitate one of their comrades (!), which happened one unassuming afternoon right outside our window, they’ll be shaken for a few days and then they’ll keep living. I’ve been reading up on what various bird calls mean and I haven’t yet come across a sound that translates to, “Now that is NOT fucking FAIR.”
Maybe everything feels a little more balanced if you can fly whenever you want.