This is the morning I have been waiting for. After a seemingly interminable winter, May 18th finally brings the day when life bursts around my house not just incrementally but exponentially. Not a moment too soon.
Could you hear it this morning in the prolonged darkness of a low grade spring thunderstorm? The leaves are singing. They are becoming under the gentle tapping of rain and the distant rumbling of creation. The leaves will be bursting all day. They are making a quantum leap from the yellowish green of early spring toward the luscious green of a deepening summer.
I am lucky. I get a concentrated dose. My house is surrounded by maple trees. Each spring, the view out my windows goes from a stark net of leafless tree branches and views of my neighbors’ houses to an enclosed feeling of a luscious green cocoon. Each year there is a morning when water contacts leaf and the resulting explosion of life is palpable. I swear I can hear the leaves growing like the sounds of night but during the day. They are singing with expansive relief because they are fulfilling their purpose.
I am traveling through a rough patch. At the end of this unrelenting winter, I partially dislocated my shoulder while teaching in Virginia Beach on the last weekend of April. What a mess. I couldn’t get home because I couldn’t transfer on and off a plane. I got to my house a day late and figuratively limped through the week with the help of my son Paul and my mother. Nearly three weeks later, I am about 60% better. My shoulder is tender and vulnerable but lifting me through my life when absolutely necessary. This injury has uncovered chronic issues of both nerve and blood-flow impingement through my arms. Healing is slow because the demand of living as a paraplegic does not allow my shoulder to rest adequately.
This injury has also given me a glimpse into an unwanted future. My work, let alone my independence, depends profoundly on healthy wings. My shoulder is a warning. I must change course. More than just physical therapy, I must explore more holistic ways to reduce inflammation in my body. I have to admit on yet another level that I am not invincible, that I need care as I continue along my path. There is still time to create a better future. Lately, however, I have been a little down because the path ahead requires me to truly feel how I am wearing down.
The leaves out my window bursting toward green.
There is strength in my vulnerability. It is an essential component of my life’s arc. This morning when I first opened my eyes, I thought to myself, another dark day. But then I heard the leaves.