When Blessings Overflow: There’s a Word For That

Posted on May 10, 2022 by gretchenwing

There is a word…but not in English. Here’s one to add to your list, along with Schadenfreude and Cafuné (Portuguese for running your hands through the hair of someone you love, according to 41 Fascinating Words From Other Languages We Should Definitely Import to English) :

Dayenu. Or, as it says on our refrigerator magnet,

right there where I’m sure to view it 100 times a day 🙂

Jews and other folk who participate in Passover will recognize this word from the Seder ceremony. In Hebrew it means, roughly, “It would have been enough…” with the added connotation of, “…and yet, God did even more! Wow!”

Passover may be behind us for this year, but the season of Dayenu is just getting going, at least here on Lopez Island. Our normally gorgeous woods and fields have somehow become even gorgeouser (hey, I just invented Word #42 for the list) with wildflowers.

Ferns & moss alone aren’t pretty enough–we get lilies too? Dayenu!

Like our woodlands even needed decorating–let alone by hot-pink orchids that look like something invented made by fairies…

possibly why they’re known as Fairy Slippers

…or golden-blooming succulents whose leaves want to get in on the color wheel action themselves:

And those are “just” the wildflowers. Then there are the lilacs planted all over our island, some 100 years old. Don’t get me started on lilacs. Or better yet, do–then read about them in this blog post I wrote some years ago on that heavenly-scented topic.

Like I said, “some years ago”. Note the stolen lilac sprig in the pony tail. Not sorry.

Extra color, extra scent, in a place which makes daily work of overloading our senses, year ’round? What else is there to say? At a loss for ways to express the feeling, I wrote this song–again, “some years ago.”

Dayenu, Dayenu

Had the rising sun not overwhelmed me…Dayenu.

Had my humble daily bread not filled me…Dayenu.

Had your arms not simply held me…Dayenu.

Dayenu, Dayenu.

Had the lilacs never breathed so sweetly…Dayenu.

Had the wild fawn not leapt so neatly…Dayenu.

Had you not loved me so completely…Dayenu.

Dayenu, Dayenu.

It would have been enough,

It would have blessed us to the core.

Had this morning been our only gift,

We would not have needed more.

Dayenu…Dayenu… Dayenu.

Had the sunset not shanghaied my breathing…Dayenu.

Had the starlight not adorned the evening…Dayenu.

Had you not promised never leaving…Dayenu.

Dayenu…Dayenu

Dayenu…Dayenu.

So my “Dayenu” these days–apart from my Mate–is spring flowers, wild and tame. What are yours? What’s better than sharing a cup that’s runnething over?

Virtual Flowers For Mother’s Day: Inspirational Chutzpah That Would Make Mom Proud

Posted on May 10, 2020 by gretchenwing

The last time I was able to venture off my beautiful island, I was lucky enough to catch the Skagit Valley tulips at full bloom, only 15 miles from the ferry terminal.

A FIELD of FLOWERS? It really is exactly as beautiful as you’d think.

Then this morning I felt equally lucky to catch this article by Kirk Johnson in the New York Times about those very fields, and a group of old high school friends who had teamed up to go into the flower business…just in time to get slammed by the Coronavirus.

As Johnson writes,

The annual tulip festival that draws hundreds of thousands of people north of Seattle to Skagit County, where three-quarters of the nation’s commercial tulip crop is grown, was canceled. And that put every other element of the tulip economy into free fall as well: No festival visitors paying to stroll through the blossoms and no money spent on restaurants, hotel stays, bouquets and bulbs for growing at home — a $65 million hit to the local economy that only compounded the economic blows of the state’s shelter-in-place orders.

Faced with the prospect of losing 90% of their revenue, Johnson writes, the five bulb-farmers, once cheerleaders and “yell squad” teammates from Mt. Vernon High, had to innovate, and their courage paid off.

Phone calls started coming in from people who were not going to be able to come in person to visit, said Rachael Ward Sparwasser, whose journey went from cheer squad to lawyer and investor to tulip partner. “Would you be willing to ship blossoms?” the callers asked. The old business model had mostly involved shipping bulbs to gardeners, not fresh bouquets.

Their company had 600 shipping boxes in storage, and Ms. Sparwasser figured they might get orders to send 100 or 200 boxes, 20 stems each.

“Within the first day, we sold through all of it,” she said. Within weeks, they boxed and sold 8,000 bouquets, a completely new business line started from scratch.

Then, as a wave of appreciation grew around the country for health care workers and others at the front lines of the virus, the idea struck that people might pay to have a bouquet of tulips sent as a donation and statement of support. So came their new Color for Courage business line — and more than 4,700 more orders at $15 a bouquet.

Glory be.

Could there be a better story for these times? No, it doesn’t have to do with Mother’s Day directly, but this kind of sharing and make-do innovation, this pivot from disaster to generosity, seems perfect for the day. These folks’ moms should be proud. It brought a smile to my face as bright as any colorful bouquet would have done.

Happy Mother’s Day to all, and to all a big bunch of colorful love!

Confessions of a Lilac Thief

Posted on April 26, 2016 by gretchenwing

I need help. I’m in way too deep. Into lilacs, that is. A full-bore passion.

I simply cannot pass by one of these oases of burstingly bushy blooming globules without burying my face in it…and then stealing a fat sprig to tuck into my ponytail.

You know you want me.

I’m a lilac thief. I can’t help myself.

Come to think of it–don’t help me. Let me drown in happy, scented lilac love. Just tell me, if you know…what IS it about these flowers that is so entrancing? Is anyone else suffering from their delightful bewitchment?