Nothing gold can stay

It was just Spring Solstice on Friday, and out here in Central California the weather has been unusually, record-breaking warm, with the temperatures skyrocketing into the 80’s and 90s. My garden has burst into bloom, and every day I am treated to another plant flowering, the scent of roses and the orange blossoms wafting through opened windows while I sleep.

We went to Denver for a family trip and just before I left, I noticed the gorgeous magenta buds on my Oklahoma Redbuds and thought, I should really go out there, take the time to look at them, really look at them. But, getting distracted with life and chores and the monkey mind of my daily thoughts, I didn’t. When we returned from our trip, Matt and I went outside to inspect the yard and he remarked, “Oh, look at that. The flowers on those trees are already gone, the leaves pushing through.”

Gone. Just like that.

To enjoy them up close, I’ll have to wait another year.

But isn’t life just like that? A series of fleeting moments, all jumbled together, one after another. One by one, like the stars that start poking through the twilight sky, and all of a sudden, there, at the end of your life, we have a full galaxies of memories, like shards of sunlight refracting upon the water.

The challenge is, did we cherish them? Savor them? Or did we from one lilypad moment to another, enjoying nothing, rushing to some unknown, desert mirage destination that never truly arrives.

I felt a little melancholy, chagrined as I thought about those Oklahoma Redbuds, here for a moment, for my singular delight, and then gone, in a flash. Just like that. And I hadn’t bothered to notice. No, not really.

But God and nature and Life itself is kind, and forgiving, and despite our buffoning ignorance, flings out to us like confetti, moment after singular, miraculous moment. Millions of tiny miracles in our life, as plentiful and uncountable as the stars in the sky.

So the lesson, then. For there is always, indeed, a lesson. At least for me.

Smell the flower.

(Such a cliché, but oh so true!) Read the book. Write the book! Cry the tears.

Laugh even when no one else is. Tell someone you love them. Or that their hair is pretty, or that you love their laugh. Take the chance. Say sorry. (It doesn’t hurt, I promise.) Fail. Fall down. Get up and fall down again. And again. Count the stars. Chase the dream. Love. And love again. And again.

Our black and white malti-poo, Buster, is 14 years old and in the last few weeks he has lost a lot of weight, has had issues going to the bathroom. Slowing down, sleeping all the time. Normally my constant shadow, lately he has been staying in his bed all day, barely moving. On walks, normally his favorite activity, we have been dragging him along. We are taking him to the vet today to find out what is going on. My heart is breaking as I realize his time is ending here on earth.

That same challenge, I ask myself, that same, accusing question. When the time comes, how will I measure up? Have I savored my moments with my sweet, beloved dog, enough? Have I cherished him, as I should have? Did he know how much he was loved? I suppose I’ll never know, until I cross that final bridge myself to the other Side, and find my Buster at the other end, waiting for me.

Robert Frost’s poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, reminds us that the impermanence of life is the whole point—that the best things in life aren’t meant to last, but the trick is, is to enjoy them, one by one. And say to ourselves and every moment we encounter, like all the beautiful, fading flowers in my yard:

You are beautiful.

And you.

And you.

And you, too.

This moment, in its fragility, in its infinite mortality, is perfect.

Because indeed, nothing gold can stay.

It was never meant to.