A lilac by any other name – (this is actually some kind of privet) – does indeed smell as sweet.  Full of rain, hiding on the retaining wall behind my patio, the fragrance of sweat and honey.  Heaven is often close at hand.

The week went a little differently from how I imagined, and that isn’t really news, is it?  As you see here, I got the big camera back just in time to worship at the spirea fairyland along Buckeye Road – and any older neighborhood where romantic souls have slathered “Bridal Veil” along property lines and driveways.  It hurts me to see spirea pruned into rigid hedges with only a few white puffs struggling to bloom on stubby twigs of old wood.  Spirea are languid, unruly beings, meant for lazy dreamers who like to leave things alone and see what happens.

I imagined I’d write to you at least a few times in the mornings this week before my class, but instead I was submitting homework at 6 a.m. every day.  This week I went to an orientation for a paralegal program I plan to start in the fall.  Our class seems to have started as we are meant to go on – working hard to follow instructions to the letter,  get things turned in on time, and wrap our brains around completely new territory as fast as possible.  It took all my powers to finish the assignments for each session. It was kind of fantastic being surrounded by people who care enough about what they are doing to care about what I am doing.  I have been missing that for so long.

What will take root in this new soil is an open question.  For now, I’ll leave things alone, and see what happens.

Sunday was True Junker Christmas.  The opening bell rang at 7 am sharp for the first Elkhorn Flea Market of 2015.  (By the way, there is no bell, but while you are standing in line at – oh, maybe 6:30 – stamping to keep warm, crowded with similarly ebulient people who think finding good junk is better than another hour of sleep, you do feel a little like a race horse ready to sprint.)

I will write a little more about our day, but for now you can see that I got a blue elk and had breakfast at the Elk diner, plus just a tiny bit of the wonderful treasures Junker Santa found for the other kids who woke up early to open their stockings.

To begin with – even with the big camera, I hardly ever have any idea whether I have made an image or not.  And now with only my phone to work with, my uncertainty is even more conclusive.  The bright lcd screen is wonderful, but it is no match for the world.   Between the sun and the wind and my nearsightedness, truly – I might just as well close my eyes.  Which – frankly – I sometimes do.

If I am honest, I have to admit to myself that the way I take pictures mirrors all the childish beliefs I still hold about Life, and its underlying Operating Principles.   Mostly, I still think that Good Things only happen because of Magic.  (This also means I believe that Bad Things happen because I am wicked, but that is a fairy tale for another day.)   Meanwhile, some dear, insane part of me is clings tenaciously to an absolute faith that if I stand helpless in a Paradise of Lilacs long enough, Magic is bound to come my way.

Yesterday, I couldn’t choose between going to see the lilacs, or visiting the Rosey Tree.  At first, I drove out to Rosey Tree, pulling up against the curb where Farm and Fleet’s driveway t-bones into the wild, neglected parcel she shares with huge arbor vitae, 2 enormous ash trees and an abandoned orchard.  I sat in the car, waiting to get out – but I didn’t.  Rosey Tree is maybe 50 paces from the driveway, through long grass and broken asphalt – but it is a long walk to a surprisingly isolated place.  It scares me to go there alone.

I watched a blue bird skimming from the giant ash tree to the scrub and back, muscling against a gusting wind that lay the grasses almost flat.  There were people nearby – a dozen cars passed me while I debated with my fear.  But taking pictures is an activity that isn’t compatible with cautious awareness.  I can’t help it. After the last 6 months, I just want safety.

After about 10 minutes admiring Rosey Tree from afar, I turned and headed toward the lilacs.  I decided I can’t let Rosey Tree haunt me.  If I feel ok being there, I’ll go back.  I loved seeing the bluebird though.  And the lilacs are beyond belief.

As if they weren’t already seductive enough, the pink and white and violet branches of magnolia lilliflora, malus floribunda, and syringa vulgaris fan the ardor of bees and butterflies with a perfume so potent, even us humans (with our limited olfactory equipment) grow weak in the knees.   Breathing in this invisible beauty, at last I can hold a bit of The Pinkness inside myself, touched by the realness of everything I cannot see.

Does it seem too Captain Obvious to point out that The Pinkness isn’t all sunshine and bluebirds?  Or to observe that if you really want sunshine and bluebirds A) you aren’t necessarily going to find them at the Arboretum in the fading light when you get there after commuting home 100 miles or B) you might need to bring your own bluebirds.

Of course, The Pinkness is all about light, and life penetrating this thick, winter dullness.  Sometimes you feel as exuberant as a breeze carrying petals into your hair, but sometimes it is rain drop by rain drop, seeping along the crevice where the stalk meets the earth, down to where our roots are waking, ready to begin their work.

My mother painted not only on canvas, but inside my mind.  That is the terrible privilege of being Mother – you are granted permission to step through a doorway which widens only for you and across which threshold, whatever you conjure will become part of the Realness of another human soul.  And on a few occasions Mom cast the spell of her father’s garden on my inner world, filling me with noble Lombardy poplars, and tantalizing white peach trees and the heavenly embrace of lilacs upon lilacs.

And I have been looking for that place ever since.

The academics were talking, congratulating each other on their fascinating work, while a few feet away, I plodded around this crabapple, trying to squeeze it into my mind.  The Eastern European Accents asked the Tall One about the Arboretum, which has been been swarmed by pink and white with a velocity that I just can’t grasp.  “Oh, I live nearby, so I just walk over,” the Tall One replied, referencing the neighborhood of twisting streets and 1920s-era suburban mansions that surround what was once a rural outpost of the University’s Ag program.  “But I’ve never seen it like this before,” he continued with genuine amazement.  Stumped, the Tall Academic tried to explain the mystery to himself and his friends.  “Maybe it was the dry spring,” he said, “I don’t know.  But I’ve never seen them all bloom at once like this.”

The thing about Wisconsin is – you are seldom more than 20 minutes away from a tender, green valley the glacier left behind.  It may seem merely bucolic, but it is like a long-lived love that doesn’t need any heroic gestures or spectacle to prove to you how deeply you are wanted.   Simply holding hands brings you home.

Whispering Woodlands is an art retreat about 20 minutes from anywhere in Madison, and even closer to the West Side.  Jackie has filled the workroom with every conceivable mark-making tool, including her beautiful letterpress.  It also happens to be a quietly magical setting, with a remarkable view of just how far the green-ness is willing to go to declare its love.