Back With a Vengeance and an African Tulip Tree

This is the blossom from an African Tulip Tree.  It's considered invasive here in Florida--which means that it grows easily and can crowd out native trees.

This is the tree as it looks when I come out of the Lewis Center (where I take Financial Accounting this semester).  Because it is so large, I didn't really notice it until I came out after a test today and there were dozens of red-orange flowers on the ground all around it.  

The leaves are actually large leaflets all strung together.  Shiny and slick on the top, they provide great shade for the ground underneath the tree.

The back side of the leaf is dull and downy to the touch.  The ribs are easy to see--and the leaflets are attached opposite each other--at the same node on the petiole.  

What I really love, though, is the way the flowers are made.  From the side they look flat with a gradual transfer of colour from yellow through orange to a hot red.  The moon-shaped sheath that covered the flower before it bloomed is really soft and tender--fuzzy like a favorite baby blanket might be.

I love the split casing where the flower kept hidden until it was time to come out (it reminds me of a waffle cone).  The same colour scheme flows up from the back of the flower to the top of the highest petal. 

Now for the essay.  Yes?

I damaged my right shoulder about two months ago.  My surgeon didn't want to go in again and operate when I first went in to see him.  This would be the 4th surgery in the same place.  He suggested a cortisone shot--which I was OK with.  

My lifetime of falling off of horses, falling off of gymnastics apparatus, pulling at the stubborn roots of weeds, sporadic wall climbing bouts--blended with my genetic predisposition to arthritis--has left me with bulging discs in my neck and lower back. 

The pain that comes from my spine is assuaged by routine steroid shots, nerve risotomies (they go in and cut the nerves that are being crushed and that cause sciatic pain in my hips and down the back of my legs) and the infrequent spinal (it's what I got before giving birth to my first child).  SO cortisone in my shoulder was no biggie.

Unfortunately, a few days after the shot, I decided to pull some invasive vines off of a palm tree in my backyard.  My plan was to jump up and grab a bunch of them and then my weight would pull them off of the palm and down to the ground. 

It must have been quite funny to watch.  I launched myself up, arms extended straight above my head, and grasped the thick maze of vine stems.  And then I just . . . hung there.  

Having misjudged the influence that my 125 pounds of muscle and sinew would have over the thick vines that covered the palm, I hung there--listening to the remaining muscles Pop! . . . Pop! off of the shoulder bones of my right shoulder.

Envisioning what it looked like now, I am rather put off by the fact that I don't remember any pain--only the frustration I felt at failing to bring the vines down to the ground.  It felt as if I was left outside the gates of the city as night fell, pounding and screaming to be let inside.

Back to the present:  After I got home from taking the test, I looked over the test questions that I remembered AND realized that I had forgotten to subtract the SALES from the RETAIL COST OF GOODS AVAILABLE FOR SALE before multiplying the cost-to-retail ratio with the RETAIL ENDING INVENTORY COST.  So my FINAL INVENTORY AT COST was WRONG.  Augh.

This revelation leaves me outside the city gates, with my hands in my pockets, eyes glued to the ground--kicking the gates with the toe of my shoe in a hopeless, irregular kind of fashion.  

What's on the other side of the gates?

For years, one of my daughters continually sketched a small character whose face was covered--or was positioned with the back of her head facing the viewer.  I asked what the character looked like--was it an animal--a mouse or a mole or a rabbit?  As time passed, the character began to reveal more of itself to my daughter.  
"He is not ready to show more of himself yet," she would answer my questions.

What was on the inside of that drawing?
It took time, but eventually the character opened wide for the world to see. 

The same happened with my daughter--she has gradually flowered and become quite open and comfortable with those around her.  In high school, I would walk down the halls with her and lots of kids would greet her "Hi, Megan!"  I would ask her who each of them was and she would tell me softly that she didn't know any of them.  

Now I visit her, her husband, son and daughter in their home and she introduces me to all of her neighbors and describes the family members and what the children are interested in. 

I was with her Halloween 2013 (almost a year ago now) and as we walked the labyrinth of streets in her area, she told me about which Church members lived where and what callings they held.  It was as if they were part of her--as if in opening up herself, she had become multiplied, magnified. 

She has adsorbed the full range of her self:  bright sunny love; citrus sparkle intelligence; fire hot curiosity and devotion to those things that she knows are right.  I am looking forward to seeing what else is revealed as her character reaches further still--protecting her children as she provides them with the resources they will need to flourish and discover their own characters.  

Taken in New Your City  December 2012. Church door.

I am still outside the city--standing at the gate.  At 55 years old, I feel as if my own chance to emerge is beyond me yet.  My mother used to tell my brothers, sisters and me that we would be better than her and our dad.  If mankind--if each of us--wasn't growing into someone with more love, more patience, more talent, more curiosity, more intelligence, more obedience, and more sensitivity to that which was sacred and holy; then we were becoming less.  Like muscles that atrophy with disuse, we could not simply exist.  We had to be improving or we would be losing something of who and what we were.

I think I am still waiting to see what is beyond my shell--that gate that keeps me from entering, but also protects me from having to face, what must be faced.  To see the city is to see my own character--to find my own face.  

I have always loved staring at myself in the mirror.  The older I get, the more of my mother I see in that reflection.  Last year I felt a desire to have the wrinkled corners of my eyes lifted and the loose skin below my jaw taken off.  I felt old, past the time for starting and exploring and flying and learning.  I felt weighed down by the reality of my body.  

Something has happened between then and now.  I do not focus on the outside edges of my eyelids.  I carry my head higher and my back straighter.  I smile more.  I am still standing at the gate . . . but I think that I am beginning to have the patience to wait for what will come, what will become, of me.

 In this photo, I practice hold my head high and walking in the dress that I will wear to
Lauren and Rob's wedding in November 2013.

Dress for La's wedding.

Same dress but with the jacket I wore over it.  It rained that afternoon so that the hem of my dress got wet and stained as I moved around and visited with the guests.  Some reproved me--but it will probably be the only time in my life that I wear it ... so what's a little water between friends?

Esoteric phrases . . . I am never NOW.  In the time that it takes my brain to comprehend where I am--that place has changed. 

My husband protects me, still sees me as I emerge.  It is good that I trust him so well--if he has confidence in me, then so do I.