“…You Should Smell Like Dirt.”
“In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood said it and for all us who have been a little down lately from too much cancer, too much loss, too many trips down memory lane, it’s time to play in the dirt. It’s one of the best ways I know, to find hope again. It shakes off the winter chill that settles into our hearts. Planting for Spring is our way to “lift” our surroundings.
If we’ve learned any thing in our many cancer journeys, it’s that we need to appreciate each day. It can change so quickly and when it does, we look back and realize how much more we could have squeezed out of each day. And if we were lucky enough to be a part of another persons life, it’s time to remember the great days we spent sharing that life together.
Spring can do that for all of us.
April 5, 2012 @ 9:18 pm
Somewhere in virtual reality is Leroy’s Garden. It’s blooming now with all our favorite flowers. I remember how we all planted something, something different for every season, seeds and flowers of hope, renewal, and remembrance. There was even a fairway in the garden for the golfers among us. I wrote:
. . . our garden uncovers the promise
where light is brightest
and canopy lushest.
Visitors crowd to get in; we pause to get out
the names of the ones we miss
not with empty hearts,
in whose hands we’ve placed ourselves
for soul-keeping.
All three of the Garden poems I wrote for Our Cancer are still on my blog (9/09 and 10/09). In the Garden, we all shelter in hope against loss.
April 6, 2012 @ 9:28 am
Mo…so beautiful.
Laurie
April 5, 2012 @ 7:55 pm
My sister couldn’t wait for spring every year. Her hundreds of bulbs would be blooming and she would be preparing her beds for plants that would grow like they were on steroids. I shouldn’t be having such a hard time honoring her by getting ready and by playing in the dirt but despair seems to have taken me over lately. Maybe tomorrow.