April 10: "Violets," Celebration to Cessation, Smell the Violets

Mary Oliver on loss . . . 

Violets

by:  Mary Oliver

Down by the rumbling creek and the tall trees--

     where I went truant from school three days a week

          and therefore broke the record--

there were violets as easy in their lives

     as anything you have ever seen

          or leaned down to intake the sweet breath of.

Later, when the necessary houses were built

     they were gone, and who would give significance

          to their absence.

Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take

     your place?

The day after Easter.  All the palms have been waved.  The fires and incense have been burned.  Tons of "alleluias" have been sung.  Chocolates and ham and eggs have been consumed.  Now what?

That's always the question after some big event or occasion has concluded.  It's difficult to slip back into the "ordinariness" of life after something extraordinary.  Like December 26, after two (or three) months of buildup, there's a void that's difficult to fill.  The segue from celebration to cessation is jarring, at best, and incredibly depressing, at worst.

That's what Oliver is getting at with her poem today.  When something you deem important suddenly disappears, how do you find a replacement?  For Oliver, it's violets that have been extinguished by houses.  The sweet breath from Oliver's school truancy days is gone.  She will never be able to reclaim it.  It has become memory, gilded with nostalgia.

That's the way it works.  Experience becomes image.  Image becomes narrative.  Narrative becomes story.  Story becomes memory.  Memory becomes legend.  That's why, walking down a street and smelling orange can immediately transport me to Hanauma Bay in Hawaii, sitting on the beach, eating fresh oranges and pineapple with ocean salt on my lips.  Because that smell has forever become a talisman of that experience.  Orange = coral reef + blue water + white sand + cocoanut sunscreen + wife + honeymoon.  Memory equations can get quite complicated. 

Of course, not all memory triggers are comforting.  My sister, Sally, who passed away used to eat Skittles all the time.  She had bags and bags of them in her office.  When her blood sugar was dropping, she would pour Skittles into her mouth and chew them, and the fruity sugar of them would hang in the air around her.  For me, it's not a pleasant smell.  It brings back too many memories of my sister's last months and days.

I am not particularly nostalgic when it comes to Easter celebrations.  I have few strong associations with the holiday.  Lent and Easter mean extra work for me as a church musician.  Lots of music that I'm not particularly fond of playing, and lots of extra worship services that are complicated with lots of different traditions.

All that being said, I do experience a sense of absence after Easter--all the preparation and anticipation suddenly gone.  Like Oliver, I still feel the need to smell the violets, even if I know they've been picked or cemented over or buried.  

The memory of them lingers on for Saint Marty, like the line of a song that rattles around your head for weeks, reminding you of an old friend, a dead relative, a high school prom.