I’ve cried a little today—at church, during the opening lines of the liturgy, and then again over Sunday brunch with my husband. Little ripples of grief bubble up to the surface, then recede. Another month of trying to get pregnant, another month of failing. Our journey to starting a family has been unexpectedly painful—punctuated by multiple miscarriages and now, perhaps, infertility? And yet, everything is “normal”, the doctor tells us—we’ve taken every possible test, multiple times over. (I never knew we’d need so many scans to tell us we’re fine). “The odds are in your favour,” she assures us. My husband and I are comforted yet can’t resist chuckling—we hear echoes of The Hunger Games.
As the grief ebbs and flows today, I’m struck by the timing of it all: careful attention to cycles overlap, now, with careful attention to our favourite season: early spring, in the small town in central Pennsylvania where my husband and I—a Malaysian and a Midwesterner—are slowly nurturing our love of gardening. I take particular pride in those window boxes—which flowers this year, which colours? We obsess over what can and cannot thrive in our shady backyard; we wrestle new perennials into rocky, clay soil; we count each new bud and bloom in our vegetable box out front; we calculate when to prune and fertilise. Early this season, we watched over two sweet little broods, born and raised here, in this place we call home. A family of baby finches fledged from the nest in our front door wreath, and a warren of baby rabbits was safely relocated from a den behind one of the holly bushes.
I look out at this view and am still amazed: a dusty, packed-dirt backyard now features a small, flagstone patio we laid ourselves—such pride in that exhausting, imperfect labor. And we built up that back corner for the birds we’ve learned to name and love. Retaining wall, compost, fence: all so they could visit our feeders and remain (mostly) safe from Story—our pandemic pup.
In truth, we’ve already started our family—Story girl reminds us of that daily. How many rituals we’ve built around her; how much love poured out and shared in a community that fusses over this sweet rescue almost as much as we do. She’s a part of our home and garden and we tend them, together.
As we enjoy afternoon lattes on the deck, I feel the grief lift a little. I am soothed by the dappled sunlight; the unexpected sighting of a Northern Flicker at the suet feeder; Story lounging, yet alert. Breezes rustle the greenery above and bird calls ripple over us. Loss and grief mingle, here, with a sense of grounding gratitude. We’re surrounded by all this budding, teeming, flitting life, and the promise of summer harvests ahead.
4 June 2023 • Carlisle, PA
How to cite: Menon, Sheela Jane. “Early Spring.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 11 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/11/early-spring.
Sheela Jane Menon is Assistant Professor of English at Dickinson College. Her research examines issues of race & multiculturalism in Malaysian literature & culture. Sheela Jane’s writing has been published in Verge, ARIEL, The Conversation, The Diplomat, and New Mandala. Her work is informed by her upbringing in Malaysia, Singapore, and Honolulu. She can be found on Twitter.
Cha 