Eclipse

I saw a dragonfly land on my clothesline a couple of days ago, like this tiny alien dropped in from some other dimension. Only, amazingly, it wasn’t. It didn’t. Dragonflies, ta da! exists in this world. Astonishing! And seeing this critter I found I needed another word to use instead of one that derived from someone once called Drumpf. I settle on Eclipse: Dragonflies eclipse what I read in the newspaper yesterday. I’m skipping the news today and staring at leaves.

 

The view outside my window is absolutely green. That’s the best descriptive word I can find for it. It’s basically a bunch of leaves.

There’s something profoundly restful and maybe even newsworthy about those green leaves waving around out there, those thriving plants, deep deep green with chlorophyll and sunshine and chemistry happening on the spot. It’s hard to think these same magnolia trees were iced and blowing wildly in a snow storm only a moment ago. A few days. That’s how it seems. All seasons and times blended into one—the older I get the more that’s how it plays out in my mind—some days all green growth and rest and warmth and birds flying and insects humming and buzzing and doing their tiny, all-important bug jobs. 

 

And some days it’s all global chaos and anger and world powers flexing their abs and swinging Thor’s hammer, when, really, they ought to save that hammer for Thor. 

Some days it’s Trump bulldozing the U.S. democratic system and it’s All is lost, all is lost, and pain, grief, despair, and everyone hunkered down hating everyone not belonging to their club. 

 

And then you look outside and the trees are still there, and they’re still green and growing and patient and alive and the dragonflies still land on the clothes line like small glorious miracles, in spite of Drumpf and his Drumpfsters wreaking havoc. And you think, Cultivare L’orticello. Cultivate your little garden. Like the dragonflies do. And the Italians.  Thanks, B, for introducing me to that phrase.

I could do that, too. Cultivate my little garden. I could freak out. Or I could make this one spot lovely, in spite of me being me, all messed up and flawed and broken and inadequate in so many ways. I can work on my little garden. I can grow my cucumbers and surround them with marigolds and pick off each invested leaf one at a time. 

  

And pick up the dead squirrels my cat killed off the lawn. 

 

And write my stories, stories that no one may very well ever read. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they will. It doesn’t matter. 

 

What matters, Frodo, is that you keep on walking toward Mount Doom with the ring. And what matters, guys, is that we keep showing up, attempting to do what we can, whatever that is, however bad we are at it. Cultivare L’orticello, friends. Let’s keep on giving space for the dragonflies. We can let dragonflies eclipse chaos. And cultivate a little pocket of something lovely, out of the way, all full of life.