Just around a week ago, I wrote my last story, which dealt with our supposed return to normal, looking at our world before it was frozen still by the pandemic. It was not a terribly pretty picture if you bothered to look, which was the gist of the piece.

I am not really read by all that many people, which has never seemed to matter all that much to me. Regardless of numbers, I am definitely impacted by comments, because every writer writes to be read, otherwise they’d just keep a secret journal under their pillow.

So far, I am lucky, because I have not been trashed by any readers, which I guess would be inevitable if I had a much wider following. A remark by a friend to this last story was unbelievably complimentary. Actually, it was a high-speed arrow of bright light to my heart. I was stunned by her words. It instantly made me feel nakedly self-conscious and I started thinking, how the hell am I going to top this? I was frozen, choking on superlatives. I also cried a lot, something I seem to do without much provocation anyway, but this really touched me.

I went to sleep that night, incredibly flattered and equally humbled. I confess to doing this thing to touch you guys, but I was unprepared for it to come back at me the way it did. The next morning, after some compulsory ablutions, which I will spare us both, I went out to my stationary bike, for my ride to nowhere. I sat down and looked over to my left at my quietly, elegant companion, a purple blooming orchid. I got her as a birthday gift, nearly a year ago. You always get them when they are in full costume. She then lay dormant for months and months. After a time, this scrawny twig sprang forth and just quietly hung there, slowly reaching out beyond the potted roots.

Orchids remind me of hummingbirds, perfectly contrasted. I had some feeders when I lived in northern New Mexico, off a dirty road, off a dirt road. Over forty years in New York City, numbed me to nature, but I always knew I would love her as soon as we met. I was so thrilled to sit absolutely still, surrounded by earth colors and squared off mesas, just under the feeders. I’d be invaded by these tiny, blurred wing, hyper-active, pixie dusted fairies, enveloped by nature in a too rapid morse code of movement. Orchids, on the other hand, were like a Disney, slow motion nature movie. It seems like you turn your back and when you suddenly whirl around, there is a magically, gorgeous bloom, exploding from a stupid, lifeless twig.

There are no accidents in nature, a kind of perfect plan, even the surprises are mysteriously orchestrated with no miscues or notes off key. This muted, purple magnificence was split in half. There were five blooms on the left and four on the right, with one remaining nugget on the right to complete this masterpiece. I was not going to write my story until I got the nod from number ten, which also allowed me to gestate the words that were still budding inside.

Each time, before I get on the bike, I punch up Pandora on my cell phone and if the first song doesn’t work for my routine, like Kendrick Lamar early in the morning, I keep finger tapping until I find one that does, like anything by Hall and Oates. I then plug in the headphones and squeeze em to my ears. So I got going this time, still thinking about my friend’s comments. All of a sudden, it’s the unmistakable sound of stylishly, maximum cool Miles Davis, blowing Autumn Leaves. I know he was famous for having incredible jazz players and letting them fly on their own, somehow meshing their unique sounds into a masterpiece. It made me think about nature and its perfectly manicured chaos.

I spent this past week, waiting to suddenly flip around and see two rows of five, neon purple, orchid blooms. I was also thinking about trying to mimic the singular beauty of nature, while being totally unselfconscious at the same time. For years and years, I have thought about how I want to live my life. It’s like being in the foreground of a perfectly painted landscape, while holding the palette of every imaginable color in the grip of your hand. The view keeps changing and you do your best to keep up with it on the canvas of your life, coming close, but never quite getting it. I think I live in that gap of almost knowing, committed to keeping at it until time ends.

I was really stuck in that moment of trying to take in such a heartfelt gift from a friend and to keep doing what I love to do, which is sharing stories with you and to act naturally, being true to nature, orchids, hummingbirds and Miles.

Thank you for reading my stories and letting me share my nature with you.