the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all
Hello, fronds! If you'll indulge me, a little story time before we really jump into it:
I try and go on walks every day, but one stands out. It was last Monday, cold and rainy (and a little hail-y, too, which was wild,) and if things were Normal I'd be grumbling about having to commute in such awful weather, but things aren't Normal so I wasn't commuting, I was just walking to get some fresh air & exercise, to give my roommate some space, to make sure that my rapidly shrinking bubble of a world didn't shrink any further. I'm sure eventually I'll branch out, but for now I keep my route confined to only a couple avenues and a couple dozen blocks, ones that are more residential or don't have heavy traffic. Even before everything happened, I was very familiar with those streets, would walk them at least once or twice a week. But that day I noticed something lovely: on two blocks, someone/group tagged each tree planted along them, proudly displaying its name. (For those curious, names included: the Maidenhair, Green Ash, Littleleaf Linden, Norway Maple, American Elm, Japanese Pagoda, and Bradford Pear.) With the exception of the Bradford Pear (*Damien from Mean Girls voice* You go, Bradford!) none of the trees are even close to being in bloom yet. No leaf shoots at all. So I made a note to myself to keep an eye on them in the upcoming weeks, and it made me realize that it's important to have things to look forward to during these times.
Everyone's saying what they want to do when this is all over, and while I think those are good thoughts, too, sometimes to me they feel cruel, since we don't know when those times will come. That said, search for things that you can look forward to now, things we can tangibly track, things that we know that will inevitably and certainly come, like a new book or music, like a friend's birthday, like spring coming, like trees blooming.
One thing I'm looking forward to coming back? The next season of Nailed it! on Netflix premieres this Wednesday. If you're unfamiliar with the show, it's three home bakers trying to recreate recipes you might have seen on Pinterest, aka anything super artsy, complicated, and incredibly easy to screw up (think rainbow cakes and anything involving a lot of fondant and molding chocolates.) It's more of a comedy show than baking show, especially with comedian Nicole Byer as the host (for The Good Place fans, Nicole was a guest star in season three as the gullible, good place postal worker Gwendolyn.) If the show sounds mean-spirited, it's not: the "bakers" are all competing for $10k and some bragging rights. It's adorable, low-stakes, and once an episode made me laugh so hard I fell off of a couch. 10/10 would recommend, especially now, but forever & always.
Looking for longing and meaning in what you do? Maybe a little something bigger than yourself? A fun, community-based, spanning generations project that you can get involved in, right in the comfort of your home, is-- GET THIS-- helping the Library of Congress transcribe tens of thousands of pages of suffragist diaries, letters, and documents. ISN'T THAT SO COOL?! According to this article from mental-floss: "The Library of Congress has already scanned the original documents into a digital library, but if you’ve ever tried to use a computer to search for a word in a scanned source, you know that it’s not easy to do—especially since decades-old documents often make for blurry scans that are difficult to decipher. So [in 2018] the Library of Congress launched a crowdsourcing platform called by the people, asking the public to help type up written documents word for word, which will make it easier to find and read original sources." We're in the middle of something historic right now, but wouldn't you like to be a part of something historic and good??
Miss the ridiculous? America's celebrities have you covered: Don't worry, this isn't a tone-deaf sing-a-long. It certainly has no aspirations besides being silly. That's right, it's the Matrimonial Event of the Century: a wedding between little Luna Legend's two favorite stuffed animals: Chloe and Nosh. *Stefan from SNL voice* This wedding has everything: Chrissy Teigen officiating; John Legend singing a beautiful, beautiful rendition of a song (the original artist found dead in a ditch somewhere); Chrissy's mom Pepper laughing so hard it seems like she almost starts to choke. I couldn't stop laughing as I watched. Rich people in general are ridiculous and always up to crazy shit, but I have to admit, if I was rich, I too would spend quarantine in a beautiful beach-side villa with my closest family and friends and re-enact weird ceremonies. I mean, hey, rich people during the regency era did it all the time with tableau's and plays. They're just continuing this tradition.
And last, but not least: in honor of it soon being April, and thus, National Poetry Month, each week I’ll include a poetry recommendation, both a volume from one poet, and one poem that I love from that collection. This week’s pick is Crush by Richard Siken. I’m not very good at long term memorization of things, but lines of his poems stay with me for a long time, such as the final lines in “Meanwhile.” I think, given the light fauna theme of this letter, it’s appropriate. Even if you don’t enjoy or “get” poetry, I hope you give it a chance.
As John Berger said, “Poetry makes language care because it renders everything intimate. This intimacy is the result of the poem’s labor, the result of the bringing-together-into-intimacy of every act and noun and event and perspective to which the poem refers. There is often nothing more substantial to place against the cruelty and indifference of the world than this caring." And I think that caring is something we’d all like a little more of, don't you think?
That's it from me for now. See you next week, and stay safe, my little magnolia blossoms!