Today I visited my balcony again, and, quite to my surprise, bulbs are shooting up everywhere. Where there were none yesterday, one was five inches high. I should have been able to see it growing if I'd been watching carefully. Many other shoots had burst through the soil as well, boldly forcing winter to yield to spring.
Intellectually, I knew this would happen; something similar occurs every year about this time. Yet every time it is a miracle unfolding before my eyes. My mind--my memory--cannot capture and recall the true wonder of it all. The best I can do is some kind of single-dimensional, black and white version of a 3D bursting with color miracle--a true miracle--that I experienced today.
Life is full of miracles--everyday miracles. Most of them are eclipsed by activities that distract us from the wonders around us.
Our bodies totally replace themselves every 13 months. Yet even as they do, we retain our uniqueness. Our bodies have the same peculiarities, aches, and pains, and I have the same mop of curls I've had since I was a toddler, yet every one of them is new each year.
Having coffee with a new friend consumes five hours like they were an instant. There is a magical familiarity though you never met before. A play date with an old friend unwinds perfectly and totally without conscious intention. Conversations with my college roommate always pick just as though we'd talked yesterday when it may have been a year...and they've been doing that for decades. When I think about them, all of these are miracles.
As a dancer, I've had dances with people that were other worldly. In one case a Viennese waltz unfolded so effortlessly and flawlessly that I am sure we must have been dancing that dance together for lifetimes. Although my partner and I danced together for seven years, that one dance stands out in my memory a dozen years later. In another case an Argentine Tango was pure magic with a partner I only ever danced with one time. A theater arts performance left me sure that I actually could fly.
Of course, the most perfect miracles are those of love: the pride of a parent at a child's accomplishment or the care of an aging parent who has become dependent on the child, who once depended on him or her. And, of course, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the equally miraculous gaze in the eyes of new love or the mellowed, appreciative look of matured love.
Everyone of these is a miracle. Too often the miraculous moments slip through a crevice in time, not unlike my memory of spring bulbs coming up anew each year. In tensions of other moments, the miraculous ones may totally disappear from memory. I regret that I have learned too late to savor those moments before they slipped away, many lost forever.
Yet there is a miracle greater than all if these, and that is being able to start anew each day with the wisdom gained in all the days before. Tomorrow I can start again with new appreciation for every miracle with which I am blessed and truly savor each.
All of these are truly miracles.
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