It surprises me every spring that the first buds aren't green, but red. I deny it as long as I can--they're an affront, a retreat to autumnal colors, a joke. But really, it's me, of course. My imaginary spring palette is simply off. Spring has always started red, at least on those trees, which line the streets of my home town so abundantly.
It seems that in the battle between what I expect and what actually is, my expectations can be at once blinding and cruel and, of course, ridiculous. Of course there are red buds in spring.
I saw an old friend over lunch today. She's young, but experienced, a traveler, educated, with more than one skeleton in her closet. Yet somehow she avoids the gravity of it all. She's proud and a commanding feminine presence, but when I look at her, I see someone whose strength is coming from one overdeveloped muscle compensating for others that never fully healed. I know she's grown-up responsible, but she's selfish, too, a sixteen-year-old-girl selfish, half for the sake of asserting her social dominance and half self-conscious self-awareness. I like her, but I'm never completely at ease around her, which is what I think she expects of her female friends.
Today was different, though. She was well put together, subtle spring colors complementing softly disheveled ochre hair: stunning, as always (I was, as always, just slightly envious of her consistency in pulling it off). But to my surprise, I sensed that there was a thaw going on at some deep level that I couldn't quite pinpoint. It had been less than a year since I had seen her, longer than we usually let it go, but not not so long that I would expect anything beyond minor change. And, to an extent, it was almost impossible to tell that anything was different. She had been sick--that much I knew--and she told me, charmingly, of her rudeness to the hospital staff. She was not embarrassed by it: she meant that her behavior was evidence of just how sick she had been, as though neither of us would believe her capable of it in a normal state of consciousness (it took me a minute to catch on to her meaning, because, frankly, I could see her saying about the same any day of the week). Nonetheless, there was a questioning in her voice when she talked about it and a general tiredness equally likely to have been illness or maturity. It surprised me.
I wasn't the only one she was surprising, though: she had discovered, and been dismayed by, her passion for teaching. Understand, this woman is far from the warm, friendly elementary school art teacher. She's aloof. Yes, that's the best way I can sum her up--aloof. But she has found something to love, something that takes her beyond herself. And it connects her to others and softens her core.
At least, that's what I'd like to believe. A warmer, more rounded young woman, less sticks and elbows, more smiles and joy in others' accomplishments. More joy, period. But then, that's what I've always wanted from her, for her. Healing.
Today, though, seeing her in her spring colors and new gravitas, I wondered whether I might have superimposed the image of brokenness. Perhaps I only assumed that because her story was one in which things happened of which I did not approve, she must have been scarred by them. I would have been scarred by them. But then, I'm a more sensitive soul than she, and more introspective. Perhaps that is why I want her to denounce those experiences and admit that they have taken their toll: because I cannot see her without the superimposed brokenness--I cannot see her without seeing a version of myself. Or without wanting to see that.
My friend has been fine all along, though she's exploring new, healthy depths in herself. The world is not a mere projection of myself, thank goodness. Spring is red. There are new things to discover. And in that, there is hope.
