kissing roses
azaleas in full bloom at the New York Botanical Garden
May in the garden means that the lilacs are starting to brown, the air around the hedges soaked in their lingering perfume. The azaleas are in their full vivacious glory, quivering in vibrant magentas and soft purples. The roses are tightly furled, tense and wound close before the rush of blooms in a week or tow.
May in the studio means the grief quilt is fully stitched. The safety pins are piled up on the table, removed one by one from their marching orders across the soft linen and worn cotton. The borders don’t exist yet, much like the borders of this grief — it still leaks from me, sometimes, and I don’t quite know how I will bind it off. Soon, though, and in the meantime there’s a bolt of linen gauze in the basket, freshly laundered — a twirly summer dress, perhaps, nothing but joy.
May in the business means a chance to catch my breath, reimagine what it could be, recommit to good stewardship of this little venture. I remind myself I am growing an ecosystem, pruning the seedlings, clipping the basting stitches in favor of sturdier seams, engaging with the power and privilege it entails.
May in my kitchen means weeds drying on the butcher block — mugwort and soft mint for an evening cup of tea, roots still covered in soil from where they overtook the flagstones. There’s garlicky rainbow chard and eggs with orange yolks from a farm upstate, collected from under a bridge with the trains roaring overhead. Nearly every morning, there’s sourdough smeared with full fat ricotta and sprinkled with duqqa and Turkish chili flakes, and a spoon of maple syrup drizzled into the coffee.
May in my body means I find myself on my mat most days, greeting the early sun at a time that surprises me endlessly. From her porch in Vermont, my teacher talks about movement as a flush through the muscle fibers, hydration for the body. I notice the wash of movement within myself the way I notice the wash of grief and the wash of the lilac perfume — heady, expansive, flowing through and over and about. I soften like the laundered linen gauze, unstarched and earthy.
In the garden yesterday, I kept touching the azaleas with a single finger, just a brush on their chiffon petals. But the roses, both cultivated and wild — I needed to bury my face in the few open blooms the way I clutch the quilt sometimes — sturdy, enveloping, embodied.
a few medicines for May:
I’ve been spending Tuesday and Thursday mornings in Cody’s coworking space Flexible Office, and I’m delighted that they have invited me to lead our next Visioning Session on May 22! We’ll be revisiting some monthly dreams with a little bit of a nourishing twist on our intersections — more soon!
Kara’s movement practice on Range is truly one of the best and most nourishing I’ve ever found. Much gratitude to Jess who brought me here via her surgery recovery; it’s been a gift to mine, even a decade later.
A bibliography of quilts, and quilt chats with Cody and Zak.
Anti-capitalist stewardship with Bear.
ICYMI, a meditation on embodied intimacy over at chai with zia.