the transplant

Spring is coming. Temperatures hover near zero, and the ice whines on the reservoir, but days lengthen and footsteps thump like sap in a bucket. Well after five, here in Vermont, the day lingers and fades to a pinky gray. Six-thirty sees a pale glow. The evenings bite, but March doesn’t feel that far off.

Here in Vermont.

We transplanted ourselves according to wisdom, in the hard dormant freeze of winter. Our stores should have been full, all energy pulled into our efficient, hearty cores.  Growing and fruiting require stability, resources, to support the vulnerable blossoming. We left Western Massachusetts in a deep freeze, with two feet of snow on the ground. We couldn’t see the grass we were leaving, and some old planting pots stuck to their ground and refused to come with us. It made sense – less ground to stir and muck up, a heartier surface for travel.

            (It’s a pity our lives can’t ebb and flow with the seasons – as I think in every 

              season. The world around us cycles, in New England, but our energy

              requirements stay the same, with our schedules. The whole business of 

              dormancy remains lively in its figurative sense, but I think waiting for winter

              to transplant oneself has more to do with the land).

It was kinder to our destination, too, to steal away in the night of the year. As newcomers in winter, our boots and boxes don’t yet leave an imprint. It’s a gentler approach, to this sleeping land. I suppose we can spy a bit, too, before our surroundings notice. Stark and sere we can see all the crooked limbs of trees, their bare forms. Even the leaf scars, the bundle scars, the velvet naked buds of witch hazel.  Bud before leaf.  Form, structure, then flesh. Maybe when the maples wake up, they’ll have thought we’ve been here all along. They’ll yawn into fullness, and our own toes can thaw with the ground, sneaking our subtle roots into icy mud.

At least, for now, we have our houseplants, who have only dropped a couple of nervous leaves in the process. And we have the great Green Mountains, as always, pink and grand and constant at first light, even in winter.

the end is the beginning

This is the new year, and the beginning starts with loss. A talk with a mediator who specializes in helping communities transition through loss and embrace new identities has me awestruck at seasonal coincidence.[1]

All around there is the subtle change in palette, now, a bronzing, the russet of an apple, but all over our woods. Here and there a young red maple has decided to dive deep and early, and is crimson from crown to trunk. The aspens are golden.

I was cold sitting outside today, feeling more distinctly the exact location of my furnace, decidedly not in my extremities. And a birthday poem by Mary Oliver spoke about the trees turning themselves to torches. The wind doesn’t set the trees to roaring, yet, like they will in October, when they will actually gesticulate by sending their own leaves falling. But they more than rustle, now – is there a word? It has sibilance to it, with an ‘x’ in there, too. It’s not raucous, yet.

But this is the beginning, this is my new year. Technically, too – seed is set, buds are born, and dormancy is merely growth, inside-out. We all know the wisdom of cycling, by now, but I’ve just begun to understand the importance of the order of it all. Now is when we plant our bulbs. Spring is resurgence: “re.”

The maple who decides to go for it, to burn up, to set its buds and immolate, has it right. It’s right there in the word: decide. Cidere, to cut. De, away from, out of, of, etc. To cut away. From the misty infinity of potential, choosing means loss. Beginning means loss. First the leaves let go, then comes the buds’ dormancy, then the leafing.

It is still taboo to grieve at the beginning, because, I think, grief gets mistaken for a lack of gratitude. Just like when we’re scolded for feeling angry – how ungrateful. But the loss is right there, and often it’s first, and when it’s holding us, begging to be seen, our energy can’t go into what’s been chosen.

Like how we prune our apple trees, cutting the water sprouts, those endless, perfectly vertical spikes you can see on a neglected old tree. And corn suckers, and calendula blossoms, like lilac sprays. Prune them, direct the energy, and multiply the fruit. Deciding to bear fruit, and bear it well, means choosing, and that means cutting. Which always, always needs to heal.

What if weddings, those ultimate cultural beginnings, recognized the necessary end and accompanying grief that comes with something new? When you choose your person, you cut away all other potential. What if this were acceptable to acknowledge, and made the choice wiser, sweeter?

My dear friend Cella described to me looking into the face of her newborn, and the depth and purity of the sadness, and the love, that welled up- it was magnificent and overwhelming. I wonder, and it’s just wondering, that even at the very beginning, that extraordinary, finite specificity of a new being brings the understanding of loss. I have no idea what this means. I just marvel at the maple trees.

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[1] See Ken Downes Consulting, www.kendownes.com