The daffodils are out! I was in New York City last week for Easter weekend and I marveled at all the light green leaves on the trees and the daffodils everywhere. I thought it was still very much brown and dead at home, but within a couple of days of our return, the forsythia was out and the daffodils were everywhere!
Weāre nowhere near peak daffodils yet! There will be lots more right in this spot soon. Years ago, the local garden club planted daffodils up and down our road (we live on the local highway that runs right through town) and on all the major intersections and corners in town. And because we live in a big old historic house, they asked if they could plant bunches of daffodils on the edge of our hay field. A bunch of garden club ladies showed up with their bulbs and trowels (I donāt know what those special bulb-planting tools are, do they have a name? Enlighten me if you know the answer!) and planted heaps of the favored local variety, and weāve been enjoying their color every spring since.
Our forsythia bush is one of these every-other-year bushes. This is a āthinā year. Every time we have one of those āthinā years, we have the family discussion about pruning the bushāhow to prune, when to prune, etc. And sometimes one of the kids gets out some tools and actually does it, even though we donāt know what the heck weāre doing. And you know, it doesnāt really make a difference. Maybe itās the locationāthe soil, the sunlight, the weather?āor maybe itās just this particular bush. But nothing ever changes about the on-again off-again nature of the blossom show.
Some years itās spectacular and we are delighted and relieved. Some years itās thin and we are concerned anew.
I walked around the yard, looking at the things that are doing well and the things that arenāt. I know that I could insert myself into this picture and try to make things different. I could read up on things, join the garden club, ask my neighbors what theyāre doing for their yards, and otherwise try to change the result so that in the spring Iāll get more of what I want to see and less of what I donāt.
But Iāve lived here long enough (24 years this November!) that I know that things tend to rise and fall. Weāve had plum trees that gave up so much sweet, juicy bounty that we were beside ourselves trying to do something with all the fruitā¦and those trees caught a blight and every single one died. Iāve taken photos of the kids under our peach and nectarine trees, picking lots of fruitāand those trees died, too. Some years our roses do incredibly well, and some years they do nothing. We even have bushes that we thought were dead, but then they inexplicably revived themselves back into productive glory.
You probably know that commonly recited Ecclesiastes passage about the seasons:
Ecclesiastes Chapter 3
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1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.
13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.
16 And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.
18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
22 Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
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For those of you who prefer a more modern version (the above is the King James), here's a link to the Vatican archives, which has the New American Bible version.
I think this passage is weirdly comforting (although intimidating) because it gives us permission not to try to āmanageā everything around us. Sometimes even our best efforts donāt save a tree or a beloved pet or a job. You basically donāt know everything about everything, from the beginning of time till the end, so itās hard to know whether itās better that the plum tree survive or not.
I donāt actually know my intent when I write a story unless I know the ending. And I donāt even understand the ending very well until Iāve fleshed out the individual plot points. Sometimes I start out thinking that I want to revel in a nice little romance for awhile, and then I realize that the entire scope of my characterās identity is going to force me to write something else entirely. When I write, I get to play God. But in our real lives, weāre not able to do that because we not only can't see the end of all things, but we don't even know if we're aimed at the right thing (that mysterious verse 21!).
So I am left to speculate on the nature of the āthinā forsythia bush this year. Maybe if we pruned and fertilized, we could get it to look better. But in doing so, we might be upsetting something else in the life of that bush. And itās been in that exact spot for probably well over a hundred years and if I do exactly nothing itāll probably see another hundred. Or maybe not. But it's largely out of my hands, I believe.
And yet there are some things that we actively want to manage, like our health, or the well-being of our pets. How to decide when we should be āmanagingā things and when we should let go and just BE?
Right now in this noisy world, I think it would help for us to get quiet and to pay attention. To watch, to listen, and to daydream. When thereās a lot of noise, I think itās hard to pick up on signals, and itās hard to know when weāre forcing something. I know that my best work comes out of a sense of effortlessness, as if Iām channeling rather than actively working. But Iām constantly at war with all the noise out there, constantly fighting through it to just grab a few minutes of quiet.
Iām pleased to see spring outside, and to know that it had nothing to do with anything I did, and that the beauty outside my window is to the credit of the grandness of the world.
Work-in-progress
Ever Your Affectionate is in the final editing process! Iāll be going through it for final tinkering and typos this weekend, and hopefully Iāll have it all set for you by May 1! Thank you so much for your patience, I know itās been a long time since October 2020, when Ghost of Tomorrow came out. I thought this one would be done last fall and I ended up rewriting it and making it a lot longer. I think it was worth the delay, and I hope you will, too!
Iāve put links to my first three books (the links go to all the online stores) down at the bottom of this newsletter, but it occurred to me that in the past Iāve given away giant excerpts (25%!) of both The Portrait and Coming Home to Greenleigh, so Iāll be putting the links to the excerpts at the bottom of the newsletter, too. You can download the excerpts to the BookFunnel app or directly to your phone/computer. Theyāre just for my newsletter friends, so youāll have to type in the email address you used to get this newsletter.
What I'm listening to/watching
Iām still on my X-Files binge! Really enjoying the Mulder-Scully (āSmulder!ā) chemistry! You can find the bazillion season of X-Files on Hulu. If Iām honest, Iāll say that my old novel Meg (Iām publishing it a chapter at a time on my private blog) was an attempt to capture that dynamic, but I think I kind of failed. My male characters always turn angsty! And Mulder isnāt angsty. Mostly.
After walking my husband through Severance last week (it was a re-watch for me, so worth it!), we are now watching Pachinko, which Iād started but held off until my husband could watch it with me. I have a few grumbles (there are some awkward moments in the writing) but overall I think itās a beautiful series with lots of historical detail. I canāt tell you what I think of the entire series until Iāve seen the end, but Iāll give you a round-up when Iām done.
This week Iām getting ready to start the next project after Ever Your Affectionate so Iāve been playing nature sounds, ambience videos, and mood music to keep my environment soothing and calm! Here have been some of my favorites. Turn it on, pour yourself a cup of something, relax, and let it be.
[4K Bird song] Relax with the sound of birdsong - Nature Sound / White Noise 2 hrs.
Gentle raining Writer's room ambience / writing sound, rain sound / calming Sound
å²éć®ē¾ććę°“ęÆč² (beautiful water scenes in Yamagata) | ååå·ć®ę°“é³ é³„ć®é³“ć声 (water sounds from Embara River, birdsong) Relaxing Nature Sounds
[Healing] Landscape with flowers 6 hours / Recovery / relaxation of tired mind and body
The ambience of the rainy city of Tokyo / the cozy atmosphere of the city
Gentle raining Writer's room ambience / writing sound, rain sound / calming Sound
å²éć®ē¾ććę°“ęÆč² (beautiful water scenes in Yamagata) | ååå·ć®ę°“é³ é³„ć®é³“ć声 (water sounds from Embara River, birdsong) Relaxing Nature Sounds
[Healing] Landscape with flowers 6 hours / Recovery / relaxation of tired mind and body
The ambience of the rainy city of Tokyo / the cozy atmosphere of the city
What I'm celebrating
- really excited for NO TRAVEL until April 30!
- reading a YA series that I seriously cannot believe I waited until now to finish! I started it years ago and then got sidetracked. These might be the best books Iāve read in a LONG time, and theyāre kidsā books! More to come in my First Friday monthly newsletter!
- a new workout program dedicated to back painā¦if it turns out to be good I will share with you!
Finally...
The weather is so nice this week! Whether you are in the southern or the northern hemisphere, I hope that this shoulder season is doing nice things for your plants and putting you in a good mood!