Blooming

There are assorted bouquets throughout my living and dining room. The vibrant colors, the wide open blooms that speak of enduring life despite being cut from the roots, and the intention behind each gift bring me great joy. 

On a marble pedestal table on the stairway landing are two dozen red roses – velvety and regal – with a card from my friend’s 5 year old daughter. The card says “Feel Better Linda” in her own handwriting above a picture of me with a heart for a brain which is by far the finest thing anyone has ever said about me. There are three red gerbera daisies and white baby’s breath from a friend in a honey jar on an end table, a purple haze bouquet sent by my sister on behalf of my mom next to an explosion of white daisies from my daughter’s roommate and her mom who was also in the hospital last week. There’s a glorious arrangement of trumpeting lilies, apricot roses, and yellow daisies from loved ones in Utah that were at my door when I arrived home from the hospital the other day. And a wildflower bouquet from my daughter Acadia with tall, impressive flowery stalks that I can’t name yet.

Outside my windows are more and more flowers and I’m thankful that I planted those seeds or seedlings before now. I can’t plant or weed or run my fingers through the soil right now. However, I can gaze on all of this splendor, immerse myself in creation, and appreciate the givers – both my loved ones and Mother Nature.

June is a month in which I’m made aware again and again of how love has changed me. The movement from spring to summer is so gradual, nearly imperceptible except for the daffodils that give way to peonies and tiger lilies. But, then there are moments – like the burst open of a bloom – in which everything changes dramatically.

On June 2nd in 1992, my partner Reade kissed me for the first time and we both – although I can only describe my own – had an out-of-body experience. One minute we were strolling through Washington Square Park as new friends, not necessarily dating, not walking hand in hand. The next moment, we were sitting on a park bench, I was describing a nightmare that had triggered an anxiety-riddled day and, despite my emotional mess, he leaned over and kissed me. I rocketed into another galaxy, collided with a bright light, and crash-landed back in my body feeling disoriented and somehow transformed. The gleeful squeals of the children in the playground behind us grounded me in time and place while I realized that I was no longer a single journeyer, my path had been irrevocably entwined with another’s, and that this – he – was my destiny. He apparently got the same download. We have been together through thick and thin ever since.

On June 28th in 1997, our daughter Acadia was born. I didn’t know that I wanted children or that I particularly liked kids all that much until her being became corded to mine. From the second I heard her T-Rex heartbeat on the first fetal ultrasound, my heart has proceeded to blow all of its boundaries.

Now, 30 years since Reade and 25 years since Acadia, on June 12th 2022, I’ve experienced a new level of powerlessness by way of the fall that fractured my bones (femur and elbow) and left me splattered in the street. Only love caught me when I tried to stand on my own and promptly fainted – Acadia. Only love hoisted me onto a gurney then nursed me and surgically replaced me back to bone-mending conditions via the NY Fire Dept, the EMS, the ER, and the Kings County Orthopedic Team. Only love has telephoned and messaged me and prayed for me and gifted me with comfy pjs and assorted bouquets, and listened to me tell my story again and again and again until the street has stopped rushing up to crush me in my haunted dreams.

Only love has made its presence known in everything – not just in the blooming, but in the crushing too.