“Keep the rage tender because the soft season will come.
Loud.
Ready.
Gulping. Both hands in your chest.
Up all night.
Up all of nights.
To drink all the damage into love.” ~ Nayyirah Waheed

I’m not sure if it’s the change of season and the promise of spring lurking just around the corner,
Or the magnolia flowers so pink and luscious that I feel my heart may burst with so much delight every time I get a passing glance.
But I feel as though this is the very first day of my life and I have arrived here on this first day of spring.
The day the magnolias are in bloom, the sky the best ever blue and the sun just the perfect amount of warm.

After so many months in the cold dark of winter
And times that felt apocalyptic even
I suddenly wake up emerging into the soft season.

Looking back,
I can’t recall any time in my life when change and healing have been so profound.
A time where I have actually had to truly to sit in all of it because there was no other way. No matter how hard I tried, there was no escape.
Sometimes I was gifted with being able to sit in a beautiful warm light, and sometimes it was in a steaming pile of shit so high I thought I would never find my way out from the stench.
It was a time where I literally needed to travel to the other side of the world.
Away from my home, because everything that I had made my home no longer existed.
There were no beautiful sandy beaches involved. Not this time.
I went in search for something different.
I wanted to find a beauty that had emerged from war, destruction, bombs.
I needed to see with my own eyes that something could heal and bloom from that much pain, that much ugliness.

I had been looking at the photo of that place for so long. Years even.
My heart longing so deeply to be there because something in me knew it would help make me whole again.
So when I had finally arrived I was expecting one of those moments, you know?
The one where I would arrive and it would seem like everyone had been waiting for me.
They would all be clapping and cheering She’s here, she’s here!! We would all hug and jump for joy.
I would feel so happy, so complete, and everything would just fit into place.
Because the photo. My heart. The longing.
But there was none of that. No happiness. Nothing fitting into place.
Nobody waiting, nobody cheering, nobody clapping, no hugging, no jumping for joy.
It was just me.
instead all that happened was my sadness showed up because it now had a chance.
It had a chance because I had finally stopped. I was finally sitting still.
This is where my sadness wanted to be all along.
And then I cried. For an hour I literally sobbed. Right there in the open in the middle of the restaurant with strangers all around.
I didn’t get up and leave. I didn’t get up and go find somewhere to hide. I just didn’t care.
I wanted to be there. I needed to be there.

Sitting there at my table looking at the river and those Karst mountains and crying all over my chicken, I ordered another beer.
It was perfect.
And that’s where it started.
The magic.
My heart finally in charge.

I am so deeply in love with how my world has changed. How can I not be? There has been so much beautiful work.
You never imagine all that ugliness is going to turn into something so beautiful, something so soft.
You never imagine the knife that was jabbed into your back and your heart is going to be the catalyst for your softness.
You think maybe you will never see spring again.
The magnolias.

“She asked ‘you are in love
what does love look like’
to which I replied
‘like everything I have ever lost
come back to me’.” ~ Nayyirah Waheed

I can see my reflection in others better than ever now, so I am more careful.
I am careful with my heart and what I give.
Because my heart and I, we work together now.
I understand that I don’t have to give it all away to be loved.
I understand that it is mine and that it is my beautiful gift to share, not give away.
I don’t have to give anything away.
How much more beautiful and delicious is something when it is shared?
I understand to not get lost in the giving.
I understand that a wisdom as simple as this doesn’t come easily to some, and it sure as hell didn’t come easily to me.
I understand that space is necessary.
I understand about the beauty in silence and in being alone.
I understand that when you have given so much and you can’t find your breath and there is nothing left but tears
It’s time to leave.
It’s time to leave.
It’s time to leave.

Rise into the soft season now, my love.
The magnolias.
It’s time.
I know.

 

*****

Kari Farley lives in Beautiful BC, Canada, and is in love with life and the mystery of it all. She is curious and wonders about many things. Mainly travel and beauty. She loves cupcakes with extra buttery icing and writing about her musings. For a living, she plants things for people in their gardens. And also keeps gardens tidy from weeds and other pests. And she writes, of course.

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