Last week, Yvette brought me tulips—and look at them. Don’t you love their sense of independence? Don’t you love how they find their own way?
They fling themselves about as if they don’t know they’re pretty.
Behind the tulips and above my kitchen table, you’ll see the poem I wrote about in The 10 Minute Fix. These four framed stanzas are from Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” published over 100 years ago in Harmonium in 1917.
I wrote about stanza II in my book, but my favourite at the moment is stanza XIII, covered by tulips.
“It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat in the cedar-limbs.”
If you were here this morning, we’d have a coffee together. We’d sit at this table and I’d offer you something delicious on a china plate. We’d talk like friends do, first about one of us, and then the other. We’d trade stories and remind each other that Covid can’t last forever, that people are basically good, that every day something wonderful happens to someone.
We’d admire the tulips.
You’d make me laugh and I’d make you another coffee. (I’m a lot of things, but hardly ever funny.)
We’d find 13 ways to look at things and together we’d fix up our worlds.
Isn’t friendship everything?
Aren’t we lucky?
Right now, after you finish reading, please text a friend you love. Let’s just do this—tell the women in our worlds that we appreciate them. It’s a 10 Minute Fix I didn’t write about, but should have.
We’re all so busy, flinging this way and that, but the heartbeat of our lives is staying connected.
Enjoy your Friday and stay safe out there.
I’m thinking of you.
Love Catherine x
PS. If you’d love to pick up a beautiful book of poetry, try The Ember Ever There. The author, Jean McCarthy, is my beautiful cousin and friend. You can find it here in Canada, in America and in Australia.
