By Anna Blaedel
A week or so ago, a dear neighbor and I found ourselves sitting together in the sun-drenched afternoon heat, sweating, raising a toast to memorialize the trees that another neighbor had cut down. The trees were old, and cedar, and the aromatic scent of their vibrant aliveness lingered in the air. I have loved these trees dearly, and cried when the chainsaws came for them–these very trees offered shelter and shade to my ancestors, great-grandparents who died before my birth, whose presence and absence I feel deeply, and daily. This neighbor’s 4 year old and I scooped handfuls of the fragrant sawdust, and scattered some in my garden, an impromptu ritual of mourning, and release. My neighbor recited some scripture, by which I mean a few lines of poetry, from Naiomi Shihab Nye: “Where there was something and suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space…”
Seldom am I able to celebrate when something that was there suddenly isn’t. I have much yet to learn, in the art of letting go. The past haunts the present, and the present shapes what’s possible for the future; the past does not, however, determine the future. That’s where the queer, sacred, creative magic of life comes in–opening, unleashing, rupturing, shedding, luring, composting, healing, shape-shifting–inviting us to participate in this world’s indeterminate becoming.
There’s a video I have been watching almost every day for weeks now, as the blossoms of spring bloom into summer. It’s a video of my youngest nibling, giddy with the delight of encountering a field of tulips. “Cute! Cute! Cute!” his little voice shrills, as he runs wildly, pointing to tulip after tulip after tulip. “So pwetty, pwetty, pwetty!” Then, my sister’s voice, “Isn’t spring beautiful?” followed by his response, “Yeah! So pofect!”
Every spring, the deer neighbors giddily gobble up the tulip buds that emerge from bulbs I planted, before they have a chance to bloom. Sometimes–if I am particularly attentive, and also particularly lucky–I may catch sight of a single tulip bloom before it disappears. This year a rogue tulip surprised me, popping up among the peony plants before their blooms started to bud. A squirrel must have dug up a bulb and replanted it there, and, sheltered by the peonies, a single purple tulip bloomed. So pwetty, so pofect. Eventually, each petal shriveled and fell to the ground. Eventually, the peonies emerged.
I love how showy peonies are–how flamboyantly and extravagantly they bloom, how their sweet scent rivals any rose. The peonies planted in my yard came from two old women, both now dead for years, who lived together and loved each other dearly and well, for many decades. Mary Oliver, of course, has an entire poem devoted to peonies. It ends:
Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life?…Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers, with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever?
I was reading these words of poetry on my patio, by which I mean praying, by which I mean crying and breathing and grieving and grounding and releasing, when I heard a soft sound and looked up to see that same, sweet 4 year old neighbor, arms filled with white and pink peonies, cut from bushes planted by my great-grandmother before either of us were born. Her sudden presence, haunting the absence that made space for her, a reminder of how much I love this world, yet. An invitation to cherish this beauty-full life, wild and perfect if just for a moment, and participate in the queer, sacred, creative magic becoming, yet.
Anna Blaedel (they/them) is co-director and co-founder at enfleshed, where they tend to the theopoetic intersections of spiritual, academic, and activist engagement. Anna chaplains University of Iowa students, and is a doctoral candidate in Theological and Philosophical Studies at Drew University’s Graduate Division on Religion. Waking before dawn, lingering in poetry, being an aunt, retreating to the woods or their basement woodshop, tending the garden, sharing silence, and feeding people delicious food are some of Anna’s favorite things.