For the unknownth year, the orchard behind the old county mental health facility blossoms untended.  Its not my first abandandoned apple orchard.  Near Berthoud, Colorado  there’s a T in the road where NCR (that’s North County Road) 21 ends, and an old ranch fence barricades about 20 apple trees from the oncoming traffic.  When I was living there, I never had the courage to stop the car and climb into that orchard.  Maybe that regret is singing somewhere in the back of my mind.  Or maybe I just never had the camera.

You see yourself differently surrounded by apple blossoms.  That’s a plain fact. Next year, you can visit me, and try it for yourself, if this orchard survives the developer who has  parked their trailer at then end of the rows, about 40 yards from the old sidewalk.  Or, maybe you can take a ride down NCR 21 in Larimer County and let me know how those trees are doing.  I feel I owe them something.

The city girl in me is on alert as I climb up the old sidewalk to the Rosey Tree.  To make the pictures I want to see, I need time alone and unobserved.  The Rosey Tree is in an ideal spot for such moments.  And of course, its isolation is what scares me.

Because to find a picture, I might have to get lost.  Correction:  I will have to get lost.  Lost in the tree.  Lost in my eyes.  Lost to most of the world around me.  Lost from the self that is trudging across the grass with a tripod, for chrissake.

No matter where I am, finding a picture requires being vulnerable.  Requires forgetting why I can’t, or shouldn’t, do certain things.  It really doesn’t matter if anyone else is there to see, or not.  It is always a risk.  I am always afraid.

Somedays, I forget more readily than other days.  Somedays,  I leave  unseen pictures hanging heavy from the branches, like the scraps of prayers tied to temple trees in Japan.  All I can do is hope the un-lost moments will carry forward on the breeze to another, braver day when 20 minutes, safely alone in the world, doesn’t seem too much to ask.

Its meaning is clear:  Come here.  Come over HERE.  Now -reach out.  Catch a little of the magic dust that has spilled across these tender folds.  Carry it, unawares, in the ridges of your fingers and spend it somewhere far away, rubbed against a sympathetic branch, which is waiting for just this intrusion.

It is not accident that we use these brazen delicacies to speak for us.  How could we admit such things to ourselves, any other way?

When I pause to create an entry to share, often my heart is throbbing with guilt.  The day is not going as it should.  My little ship is rapidly approaching the Falls, which I am sure to tumble over, just as soon as lunch is finished.  Honestly, I don’t know how I manage to write anything at all, sometimes.

But of pink magnolias, and blue skies, I have no doubts.  They will always, always be more than I can see at once.  I can crane my neck and hold my breath and never know for sure, until it is too late to try again.  Failure is almost guaranteed.  But it is my truest pleasure to keep trying.

It takes a long, long time to find the skyward path.  Reaching into thin air is key.  Twists and turns are not a problem.  Everywhich way, you grow.

I’ve been carrying Susannah Conoway’s incredible image of a magnolia branch in my mind ever since I first saw it two years ago.  It’s beautiful, of course, but what is so mesmerizing to me is how vividly she has captured her experience of spring.

After prowling around this magnolia for at least an hour, looking and shooting, and trying to watch it honestly, I felt I was getting nowhere.  Realizing it was almost time to go home, I decided I would try my evening meditation in the company of the magnolia.  I sat on a bench where I could see it.  The tension, the urgency of each image I was looking started to unwind as I looked at the pink mass of petals shifting in the exhalations of a light breeze.  I listened to the rumble of skateboarders and laughter of neighbors enjoying their view the park.  I wondered, “What is this feeling I have for this tree?  What is it I want from it?”

One word rose up, clear as a bell.  “Devour.”

Just sitting on a bench in the park is nothing fancy.  Craving the resurgence of life in springtime is nothing special.  So after the timer on my phone went off, I got up and went back to the tree for a while, with my camera.  This is what she gave me.  I feel very, very blessed.