The Quiet Room

I recently came upon a half hour massage gift certificate from last year. Perfect! After checking in, the salon staff moved me to 'the quiet room' with a glass of water before meeting the masseuse. It really was nothing more than a darkened hallway of wraparound cushy chairs with a waterfall focal point and flute music playing softly in the background.

The chair made me think of being at home in my favorite writing spot. My barrel chair sits low to the ground and wide enough to fold my knees up to rest the computer. It's so low, in fact, the dog claims me on her turf and rests her head on the edge of my knee as I stroke her ears and write.

I've tried to write other places, and sometimes do, in coffee shops or at my home away from home, but it's better here.

There is great peace in the perspective of surveying my home from down low, a straight view end to end all the way to the front door. After dusk, I sometimes light candles and turn the lights down, listening to logs crackle in the fireplace or rain tapping on the skylight. During the day, light streams in the windows onto abundant houseplants. Appliances hum and walls creak, sounds as comforting to me as those in the spa.

'The world is too much with us', Wordsworth wrote. But in my quiet space, life stills, rebuilds, rebalances my spirit. I wish the dentist's office had that.

Mattering

She's a part of my life, this woman wrapped in a shawl that has holes and stains, as she looks out at traffic on Franklin Boulevard.

Her hair is brown, I think, as she sits nestled in the crease of a closed business with garbage bags guarding her space. No smile is on this wide and earnest face, as she studies traffic, facing the day. She does not notice that I drive a different car.

Sometimes she wears a beanie and other times, when the frost lingers on the windshield, she pulls the bags up around her to break the wind. I look in her face as I pass, slowing to make a turn onto 5th, noticing her not noticing me.

One day I will touch her hand and make her less invisible as I come to know her story. She is part of my world.

Bouquet

I planted bulbs over the weekend, cheerful red tulips trimmed in yellow, that had come in a beautiful glass vase where they sprouted indoors. Like things out of their element, they didn't last long: a few weeks they brightened the kitchen before pulling back into themselves.

Now in humble modesty they sit forgotten but to the gardener whose hands gently tilled the soil and buried them like gold in the yard, beneath summer verbena, cyclamen and orange crush that has claimed center stage.

The forward push towards heat, with slip-and-slides awash in daisies, dahlias and azaleas in rock gardens, promises hearty and prolific blooms. Beauty is everywhere and is joyfully carried along in our grasp, in vases, in lapels.

We too burst with energy, texture and color, only to acquiesce to the next blooms, knowing we all deserve our turn in the sun. Tulips nap and nourish themselves to be ready when their sturdy stalks must peek through to prove that the world will awaken. Being reminded that each of our contributions make the bouquet glorious is one of the best things about spring.