Happy Easter

The promise of new beginnings often seems to spring from the depths of darkness, but not always.  Lately I have wondered if this idea is more of a youthful leftover than fact, but maybe not.

As a child I craved drama. I thought, from watching movies, that the most important parts of life came with climatic music, great contrasts in light, and much sobbing, arguing, and heart rending situations. Our grocery store had men singing opera and Italian arias as they cut meat, or stocked shelves and that was a start, but at home our life was very quiet and humdrum most of the time.

I thought that meant we lacked passion, so when I went away to college I was on the hunt for passion.  I wanted a world class love affair, flowery poetry, Victorian dresses, Faustian demons to ward off, white horses pulling painted sleds across snowy tundras. Instead I had a Japanese admirer writing me succinct little love poems, Gross Eugene with his hysterically clownish ways and the usual assortment of tall handsome Michaels.

I lived in the prairie state of Illinois, south of Chicago in the second half of the 1900s. But eventually the drama did set in and it was much less wonderful in person.

Now, after all these years I find that real passion is reflected in the cool shadows of a southern evening on a screened in porch, or good friends eating Thai food at a corner table by the windows. It is watching people you love step up and do what they do best in the most amazing ways. It is grandchildren and children and family-of-the-heart, sharing good books, eating good food, sitting together in comfortable silences and marinating in each other's presence.

 And perhaps my appreciation of all this springs from the darkness that once preceded it. Perhaps new beginnings herald a passion that grows from the deep still shadows of the past and blooms in the light of wisdom years later.

Happy Easter, I hope your passion is well aged, rich and mellow with depth.