Fawn Lilies
I slogged through a long two-and-a-half years to get through my counselling MA prerequisites. I had to bribe myself every step of the way, especially during statistics classes, since I found no inherent enjoyment in the work. Sometimes it was a cookie for every hour I studied for an exam—I'm a simple woman with simple needs. But I also gave myself longer-term bribes, such as a UVic sweater for finishing my statistics class. My longest-term bribe is my plan to buy a kayak when I finish my MA and get my first counselling job. I already have a name picked out for it: Tombolo, a little islet tied to the coast by a sandbar, common on our west coast beaches.
My bribe for applying and getting into my grad program was a gold necklace. I wanted a simple one I can wear every day, but I'm not flush with cash or given to extravagant expenditures. Most of my clothes are from the thrift store, and I like it that way. I've never bought myself an even moderately expensive piece of jewelry. It was a good bribe.
A little local jeweller makes gold necklaces whose small discs are stamped with local wildflowers. Wildflowers have always been a special love of mine. When I was a teenager, I set to learning them by heart: monkey flower, blue-eyed Mary, sea blush, chocolate lily, satin flower, spring gold. The jeweller gave me the unfair task of choosing which flower to commit to. Scrubby mountain heather reminds me of my alpine hikes, and so does fiery Columbine, beloved of hummingbirds. Camas is a special favourite; it spreads a purple carpet through the Garry oak meadows in spring and its bulbs were a staple of the indigenous diet. But in the end, I chose fawn lily, named for its brown-dappled leaves.
Like its namesake, the fawn lily is quiet, hidden in the woods. Its stem is bowed; its pointed cream petals hang downward then curve up at the ends, yellow filaments hidden within. It spreads through the forest like little lamps brightening the way.
Today I went to pick up my necklace. Yesterday, I hiked with friends down to Witty's Beach, past a waterfall that pours into the brackish lagoon. Near the falls, I peered over the railing and noticed, amid the stonecrop and ferns, a small flock of fawn lilies clinging to the rocky ledge. "Oh look! Fawn lilies!" I said as I craned my neck and blocked the path. No one seemed too impressed. But these were my first fawn lilies of the year, with Easter not far behind.
This weekend has been a warm reprieve from the sullen winter days, the degrees soaring from about six to 18. Snow earlier this month, then yesterday, a long walk barefoot on the beach, through warmish shallows and way out on the sand. My friend Leah said every year she forgets about the seasons and takes winter as a personal insult. I take spring, then, as a personal gift, as if I'm the only one noticing the filigree of plum blossoms and clutching my chest like I might expire from beauty. How can I help but thank God I'm alive for another spring?
At times we're broadsided by mountains and ocean blazing with light. We get sun-drunk and giddy and can't fail to notice it. Today I saw a woman cycling with blossoming branches in her pannier and someone dancing with a piece of tie-dyed cloth outside a little Catholic church. That’s Victorians in the spring. At other times we have to search out small lights hidden in the woods. My necklace will remind me to keep looking for the quiet signs of life, whether the woods be advanced statistics or the sad stories my clients will share. Always, no matter how old I get, spring invites me to be young with it, to hope for a world where all will be made new, and new, and new again.