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.

May Day, Madison, Wisconsin, 2015.

If I invited you to brunch on University Avenue, this is what I could offer.  Or to quote Marv Berkman, “I can’t give you anything but love, baby.”

For a few moments, I am flowering too.  That is why this is so important to me.  In fact, it isn’t simply that I am pink again inside, seeing the street corners and parking lots blush with the ancient lust of petals and bees and birds.  But, in my quest,  I grant myself permission to want – want – to be pink again.

And I am Buddhist enough to understand that desire is everything.

Today for good reason, I am quoting Auden:

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I filled her mind with flowers, today –
– and yours, my dear, no less –

and everything
was pink in black and white
and she
was very, very happy birthday.

Giving you (and me) as much of the magnolia as possible, within the square space of the viewfinder, is the challenge.  The first rush of pinkness snaps my mind into a wordless, hungry place – wanting to swallow the tree whole, if that were possible.  It is love at first sight, over and over again.

But, you can’t make a friend that way, even if you’ve met your soulmate.  The mystery of the Other is just too infinite to ever be consumed.  I think if you were to meet this tree in person, here is where you’d say, “Hello.”