5/24/11
I spent some time weeding the iris bed this past weekend. They're running a bit behind their usual schedule; only a few white or nearly-white blooms have opened. I've come to expect a cascade of purple spilling over into the driveway by May 24th each year.
Four years ago, there were no all-white blossoms. They were all either richly, imperially purple, or the glowing pink-gold-orange-fuchsia of red grapefruit pulp. The next year, there was a stem - maybe two - that showed nearly white, a whispery pale lilac-grey, ghostly and beautiful. There are more stalks of the blanched iris every year, fewer of the colorful ones, as though the blossoms are slowly fading away.
Memories fade, too; even though one struggles to keep them alive, eventually they will lose their saturated immediacy. The edges soften, the colors fade, the voices become whispers. One begins to doubt their accuracy: is that truly what I remember happening? Or has the attempt to preserve the moment altered it instead?
Like flowers, like our lives themselves, memories have their own schedule. The boundaries of their lifespans, beginning and end, lie beyond us to determine; and when the end of that span comes at last, they wither, and fade, and fall quietly away, leaving behind only elusive traces...a breath of fragrance on the wind.