Gifts to Transfer

Sunday opens under mosaic cloud cover – a tender gray gilded with May's light. My body aches after pulling, digging, and cutting overgrown ivy from the weakening privacy fence. An old wagon wheel rimmed in rusted iron leans up against the fence causing the slats to bow. I work around it because it is significantly heavier than it looks! We moiled in the yard as a family to cultivate beauty. The boys took down the rotting picket fence on the side yard and dug new holes for posts. Lex and I hauled dirt to bare roots and removed broken concrete found under ivy overgrowth. The sun was fiery and for the first time in 20 years, I wore a tank top and shorts outdoors. I'm getting stronger, you see.

In the quiet of tea, I watch a mourning dove pick the grass seed I just spread. This part of spring feels so much like a season of gifting: hostas grow inches right in front of you, the tulips polk-a-dot the entire crescent-shaped yard with yellows and reds, and the birds sing around your sleep. It reminds me that I have gifts to give, gifts to transfer.

After all the work, we shower and go see the new Avengers movie. I can feel the day's efforts pool into my back but even the ache feels satisfying. A 12- hour greenhouse shift the day before mixes a high of sorts with utter exhaustion. All this movement for the body, my body – I really am alive. Mostly.

Bumble bees keep hitting the dining room window, jolting me from daydreams. I gaze out into the east, into the rising sun, into the light that opens me. Images, reflections, observations, ideas. What if I was close enough to smell your shirt? Let me see what it means to be without words.

The oriole sing-songs from a hidden place. What happens now? I leave the lights off and sit in stillness as long as possible. Soon enough the work on the fence will continue. And grocery shopping. And the greenhouse. But for now, the present has a serenade.