I woke up with a start at 4:30am and have felt off-kilter ever since.
It seems that it must have been the tree branch, which fell off our neighbor’s tree last night and landed right outside our kitchen window that made the huge THUNK I heard. It sounded like a distant bomb going off.
Staring out at the windblown snow during this morning’s meditation brought more sad thoughts to mind, of death and weakness. The trees react vividly to the wind blowing their branches and, if we could watch ourselves from without, we’d probably say the same thing about ourselves. Sometimes I feel like a cedar, other times like an oak.
The cedar tree bounces and sways with every fiber of its being: from bottom to top the whole tree bows and flutters nervously. The maples and oaks more stiffly sway, hold their arms up to the sky despite the wind; but their tiny red and green budlets break off and fall down.
This weather reminds me of LaFontaine’s fable, “The Wolf and the Lamb.” A harsh little story! My own version, “April, the Cruelest Month,” inspired by life in South Bend, awaits below.
The sounds of tires slushing on the street below make me feel excited, like it’s Christmas time, then bewildered when I see robins hopping in the garden. How easily our minds are fooled and confused about what is, versus what is “supposed to be”!
A proverb in closing:
En avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil. Au mois de mai, fais ce qui te plaît.
(trans. “In April, don’t take off a thread. In the month of May, do whatever comes into your head.”)!!
Hang in there! Only 4 weeks til May!
These pages are from Hey LaFontaine! Are You Ready for South Bend? (ten fables illustrated in a hand-made book, 2016).
Daily Joy with Honey Girl 