Yesterday, on my morning walk by the creek that trickles behind our home, a purple speck caught my attention. Because I was looking for trout—something I do no matter the depth of the creek, river, or lake—I saw the color pop against the brown dirt of the creek’s bank. With cold hands, I scattered decaying leaves from atop the purple speck, until I cradled what was purple in between my fingers: a flower.
I’m being pranked, I thought. This couldn’t be a living thing. With color. This is winter. I looked up and down the creek to make sure no one had planted it, just to hoodwink some guy into thinking spring was coming. Hmm, I don’t see anyone, I thought. To be sure, I checked to see if it had roots—into the Earth—and yes, it was attached to the ground. So, not a decorative flower, I reasoned. Leaning in closer, while rubbing its pea-sized petals, I was forced to call a flower a flower.
Winter is getting to me. I need spring. Bad. Having lived in Southern California for five years, where the seasons are summer and not quite summer, I thought sunlight was birthright. Appalachia has chilled that right out of me. Every morning, I open the drapes earnestly, praying for the absence of cloudcover. I’m considering a sun lamp.
Furniture and writing have taken a hibernation as well. Turns out selling furniture is hard. Turns out selling books is harder. On the days where I sell nothing, it’s hard to believe spring is inevitable. But spring always comes, at least according to Rilke. Yesterday morning, I read his passage from Letters:
Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast.
It’s hard to believe that I used to miss winter, now that I’m in it. But now that I’m in it, again, for as long as it must last, it’s heartening to know a flower can make it and maybe if I’m patient, I will too.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
(P.S. Ifmy first book, 32 Lessons from 8 Years Lost in Medicine, receives 50 Amazon reviews, Amazon will start recommending the book in its algorithm (at current, the book has six reviews ). If you have a chance, I’d be grateful for a read and a review. Here’s the link. Thank you to everyone for the continual support.)
