When I lived in town, these weird ass amazing red spider lilies bloomed all over the back yard. It was a blessing because I was living in a shitty basement apartment in a rapidly gentrifying part of an already overly-expensive small southern city, and the spot was a bit moldy and cramped, but whatever man. We do what we have to do. The pandemic shut things down and I worked “from home” at a card table in the tiny kitchen, which had a window where the ground was at sill level, so I scattered birdseed out there and would watch the birds while working. When life gives you lemonade, you add seltzer water.
When I finally moved (buying a house outside of town, because somehow that was cheaper than renting, and somehow I actually qualified) my girlfriend transplanted some of the red spider lilies from there to her compound and my new spot. I saw where one had sprouted in the yard over by the trash shed the other day, and sure enough it was in full spider lily bloom today. I ended up cutting grass, and I’m glad I did because I saw four other clusters of the red spider lilies scattered around the yard, looking like little fireworks bursts that miniature fairies would’ve shot off. It was nice to see that connection of time, from shitty apartment to current yard, and being able to identify the timeline of that particular plant moving along with me. That’s presence in space (or spaces), seeing what’s going on around you. I’ve not always been great about that in my life, lost in my own blurry chaos for grand chunks of it, which was learned behavior too, so I didn’t even know how to observe shit like spider lilies, too busy being vigilant about other things that tended to rear up more easily into my consciousness.
I drove the riding mower around all the clusters of spider lilies, for now while they’re bloomed, and then I’ll forget and hit them and scatter them more, so that next year, around the time fall is starting to tease itself into the air, there’ll be more fireworks of red spider lilies throughout the yard. And the longer I’m able to somehow live and stay in this place, inshallah, the more fireworks I’ll get… the quiet, beautiful, enjoyable kind; not the explosions of burning bridges and alcohol-infused implosion that came naturally to me earlier in life. It’s hard to learn new shit or establish different patterns than what you’re accustomed to, but we’re all transplanted humans generations removed from our ancestral “roots”. It can be done.
When I finally moved (buying a house outside of town, because somehow that was cheaper than renting, and somehow I actually qualified) my girlfriend transplanted some of the red spider lilies from there to her compound and my new spot. I saw where one had sprouted in the yard over by the trash shed the other day, and sure enough it was in full spider lily bloom today. I ended up cutting grass, and I’m glad I did because I saw four other clusters of the red spider lilies scattered around the yard, looking like little fireworks bursts that miniature fairies would’ve shot off. It was nice to see that connection of time, from shitty apartment to current yard, and being able to identify the timeline of that particular plant moving along with me. That’s presence in space (or spaces), seeing what’s going on around you. I’ve not always been great about that in my life, lost in my own blurry chaos for grand chunks of it, which was learned behavior too, so I didn’t even know how to observe shit like spider lilies, too busy being vigilant about other things that tended to rear up more easily into my consciousness.
I drove the riding mower around all the clusters of spider lilies, for now while they’re bloomed, and then I’ll forget and hit them and scatter them more, so that next year, around the time fall is starting to tease itself into the air, there’ll be more fireworks of red spider lilies throughout the yard. And the longer I’m able to somehow live and stay in this place, inshallah, the more fireworks I’ll get… the quiet, beautiful, enjoyable kind; not the explosions of burning bridges and alcohol-infused implosion that came naturally to me earlier in life. It’s hard to learn new shit or establish different patterns than what you’re accustomed to, but we’re all transplanted humans generations removed from our ancestral “roots”. It can be done.
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