I feel very much this way about all the seasons of plants. I’ve said goodbye to the trilliums flowers, a few of them that have still hung on now just look like brownish dried pieces of paper. And the foxgloves and daisies have now appeared which is cause for celebration but I know I will mourn the moment when they fade too. One ongoing lesson in impermanence and celebrating what is here in the moment. Thank you for your words!
Jun 1, 2023·edited Jun 1, 2023Liked by Chris La Tray
“...if one seeks to try and do anything that doesn’t involve working some bullshit job that finds one throwing up in one’s mouth every time one is forced to endure some over-buzz-worded putz from middle-management-or-worse too bashless to recognize nothing anyone does in the organization really matters.”
😭 I feel this.
All my thoughts and prayers to you for getting through this month with a pep in your step and your sharp wit intact. You got this! And even if somehow you don’t, that’s okay too.
I wish I could attend your workshop this year, but it's not in the cards. I'm working on it. I am ... camping ... for the first time this month. Maybe I'll see you next year!
Also: fuck lawns. I cut mine, but I don't water, weed, or fertilize it. It'll be all clover and dandelions, eventually. The robins and the bees seem to dig it. We get strawberries and purple deadnettle in the back.
Fun fact: Roy G. Biv is one of my drag names, so dubbed because I would dye my hair rainbow every pride season for about six years.
Also, lawns ARE villainous. They are straight up the invention of wealthy people to flaunt their wealth. They are also always populated with colonizer grass. I am doing everything to get rid of mine, replacing it with clover and native ground cover plants.
Legit, removing your lawn and replacing it with anything NOT lawn is decolonialism in action. I encourage it highly! It's pretty easy to find out what native ground cover plants will take it over—there are always groups with information about your local native species that will happily take root and mean you never have to mow again!
Said goodbye to my best cat Seamus this week, so these words on sorrow and clinging are making me breathe deep. Thank you once again for putting difficult feelings into words that soothe. ❤️💔❤️
My next post is titled "Loss." You provided the coda when you said... "so long as we don’t cling so hard to the sorrow that we forget the joy it all brought in the first place."
"Every moment alive is a glorious one. It’s just hard to remember that sometimes. I’m sure we are all doing our best. If you’re struggling, you know you’re not alone, right?"
"We love it all so hard and it is difficult to not be a little bereft when it leaves, which is okay too so long as we don’t cling so hard to the sorrow that we forget the joy it all brought in the first place." This speaks! Would you believe it, even here in tropical Hawai'i the flowers come and go with the seasons? I say goodbye to the plumeria in autumn, and we're overjoyed when those funny thumb-end branches pop out leaves and buds in March. And then there's the mighty monkeypod tree, who says FU to everyone else's idea of seasons and (1) loses its leaves (2) drops its pods—bang bang on the roof—and (3) gains its new leaves, all at the same time in April-May.
Over here in central Vermont, there was a hard frost about two weeks ago which knocked out the more delicate blooming things in our garden – poppies, bleeding hearts, lilac, maybe the rhododendrons. A heap of sorrow. But the lupine this year are bonkers, so I take comfort!
Once your writing has struck a cord. I am not sure if it is the villains trying to destroy the world or the long winter we just survived, but this spring/early summer has been particularly fraught with reflections of the fragile. It seemed like we waited so long for the greenery and flowers that when it burst onto the scene with such potency I wasn't ready for it to happen so fast. The plants grew so fast they kept me awake at night. Usually the change of the seasons is the only change that I accept gracefully. This year the fading of the lilacs and the falling of the fragile apple blossoms does bring a different kind of sadness. The wild roses are just starting to bloom. I will try and stay present for them while i grieve the lilacs. Thanks again. Your writing is so inspiring.
That tree sounds so glorious. And the sadness at the ephemerality of them--yes. I remember in a scene from the book My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (ahem, not the tv show please) one of the bohemian writer/artist/visitors is having a breakdown over an almond tree losing its blooms in a windstorm. It's supposed to play as humor--and it is in a casual way--but really, why aren't we all taking moments of mourning and breakdown over the passing of such beauty? The appearance of the swans feel that way to me too--there and then gone again.
Lilacs still won't bloom up here until the solstice, so one antidote could be to just keep migrating north and south like the swans and follow the blooms--they are on to something. 💜
"We love it all so hard and it is difficult to not be a little bereft when it leaves, which is okay too so long as we don’t cling so hard to the sorrow that we forget the joy it all brought in the first place."
"love without sorrow | the lingering blooms | of may"
The word is that two turtles have appeared in the cattail pond that I look out on each day. I've seen the smaller one twice. A second time today. Like the turtles, I wasn't born in this particular place that has brought sorrow and joy, with joy outweighing the sorrow.
We are not alone in our sorrow or our joy or the ever-changing nature of this fragile business of being human. Thanks for the reminder. 💗
I feel very much this way about all the seasons of plants. I’ve said goodbye to the trilliums flowers, a few of them that have still hung on now just look like brownish dried pieces of paper. And the foxgloves and daisies have now appeared which is cause for celebration but I know I will mourn the moment when they fade too. One ongoing lesson in impermanence and celebrating what is here in the moment. Thank you for your words!
“...if one seeks to try and do anything that doesn’t involve working some bullshit job that finds one throwing up in one’s mouth every time one is forced to endure some over-buzz-worded putz from middle-management-or-worse too bashless to recognize nothing anyone does in the organization really matters.”
😭 I feel this.
All my thoughts and prayers to you for getting through this month with a pep in your step and your sharp wit intact. You got this! And even if somehow you don’t, that’s okay too.
I wish I could attend your workshop this year, but it's not in the cards. I'm working on it. I am ... camping ... for the first time this month. Maybe I'll see you next year!
Also: fuck lawns. I cut mine, but I don't water, weed, or fertilize it. It'll be all clover and dandelions, eventually. The robins and the bees seem to dig it. We get strawberries and purple deadnettle in the back.
Fun fact: Roy G. Biv is one of my drag names, so dubbed because I would dye my hair rainbow every pride season for about six years.
Also, lawns ARE villainous. They are straight up the invention of wealthy people to flaunt their wealth. They are also always populated with colonizer grass. I am doing everything to get rid of mine, replacing it with clover and native ground cover plants.
Legit, removing your lawn and replacing it with anything NOT lawn is decolonialism in action. I encourage it highly! It's pretty easy to find out what native ground cover plants will take it over—there are always groups with information about your local native species that will happily take root and mean you never have to mow again!
Said goodbye to my best cat Seamus this week, so these words on sorrow and clinging are making me breathe deep. Thank you once again for putting difficult feelings into words that soothe. ❤️💔❤️
My next post is titled "Loss." You provided the coda when you said... "so long as we don’t cling so hard to the sorrow that we forget the joy it all brought in the first place."
Beautiful trailer, and love the music. I am checking out the album.
"Every moment alive is a glorious one. It’s just hard to remember that sometimes. I’m sure we are all doing our best. If you’re struggling, you know you’re not alone, right?"
Thanks, Chris.
"We love it all so hard and it is difficult to not be a little bereft when it leaves, which is okay too so long as we don’t cling so hard to the sorrow that we forget the joy it all brought in the first place." This speaks! Would you believe it, even here in tropical Hawai'i the flowers come and go with the seasons? I say goodbye to the plumeria in autumn, and we're overjoyed when those funny thumb-end branches pop out leaves and buds in March. And then there's the mighty monkeypod tree, who says FU to everyone else's idea of seasons and (1) loses its leaves (2) drops its pods—bang bang on the roof—and (3) gains its new leaves, all at the same time in April-May.
Over here in central Vermont, there was a hard frost about two weeks ago which knocked out the more delicate blooming things in our garden – poppies, bleeding hearts, lilac, maybe the rhododendrons. A heap of sorrow. But the lupine this year are bonkers, so I take comfort!
A giant hedgerow of lilac that I can just walk into and stand breathing
The array of red leaves fallen in an arc under their tree where I lay down to make a leaf angel
Watching Charlie asleep on his recliner breathing one more breath until that one just doesn’t come
Or mom or dad or.....
One more breath
One more breath
Once your writing has struck a cord. I am not sure if it is the villains trying to destroy the world or the long winter we just survived, but this spring/early summer has been particularly fraught with reflections of the fragile. It seemed like we waited so long for the greenery and flowers that when it burst onto the scene with such potency I wasn't ready for it to happen so fast. The plants grew so fast they kept me awake at night. Usually the change of the seasons is the only change that I accept gracefully. This year the fading of the lilacs and the falling of the fragile apple blossoms does bring a different kind of sadness. The wild roses are just starting to bloom. I will try and stay present for them while i grieve the lilacs. Thanks again. Your writing is so inspiring.
That tree sounds so glorious. And the sadness at the ephemerality of them--yes. I remember in a scene from the book My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (ahem, not the tv show please) one of the bohemian writer/artist/visitors is having a breakdown over an almond tree losing its blooms in a windstorm. It's supposed to play as humor--and it is in a casual way--but really, why aren't we all taking moments of mourning and breakdown over the passing of such beauty? The appearance of the swans feel that way to me too--there and then gone again.
Lilacs still won't bloom up here until the solstice, so one antidote could be to just keep migrating north and south like the swans and follow the blooms--they are on to something. 💜
"We love it all so hard and it is difficult to not be a little bereft when it leaves, which is okay too so long as we don’t cling so hard to the sorrow that we forget the joy it all brought in the first place."
"love without sorrow | the lingering blooms | of may"
The word is that two turtles have appeared in the cattail pond that I look out on each day. I've seen the smaller one twice. A second time today. Like the turtles, I wasn't born in this particular place that has brought sorrow and joy, with joy outweighing the sorrow.
Sending prayers and gratitude.
Thank you for this post- I needed it this morning!