A few things happened as I ran my errands, and they put me in mind of an 1804 poem by the English Romantic, William Wordsworth. I was reminded that, despite a few unfamiliar words, perhaps, his “Daffodils” poem remains relevant.
It started that morning, when I left the house. Traffic moved along well, drivers in that relaxed but alert mode. Suddenly, as if a switch were thrown, all cars stopped where there was no stop sign. Westerners recognize this moment: drivers waited as a family of deer milled about, and, one by one, led by mom, the fawns crossed the road.
No matter which version of Bambi comes to your mind – Disney’s gorgeous, idealized animated version, or the grim realism of Felix Salten’s 1923 original novel – the image is reinforced. In our mind’s eye we will be able to call up this quiet moment: fawns and the mother.
At the store, I was going through checkout when I noticed the young man waiting on me. I could see part of an interesting tattoo on his arm, and offhandedly asked him about it. He rolled his shirt sleeve up so I could see it all, and I was amazed. “So beautiful!” I told him. The colors and the detail were rich and layered – the burnished golds and reds against the inky dark foreground – an outdoor scene, the West, the night, a mood. Seeing my genuine interest in his tattoo, he asked me if I had one. “Goodness, no,” I exclaimed, taken aback and laughing. “In my day, the only ones who got tattoos were the servicemen in WW II. They came back with tattoos on their biceps. Like my uncles: one had ‘Mom’ and a heart and a rose and the other had a big blue-outlined anchor.” We shared an intergenerational moment of laughter.
When I left, I saw one tree in the parking lot. Its leaves had turned color and the ash tree was that indescribable yellow that Durangoans are lucky enough to live with during the month of October. The tree was perfectly still. Then an errant lick of wind rose up and one leaf languidly, as if showing off, fell to the ground.
Completing the picture, standing there, leaning on a car talking were a man and a woman, the man with his arm on the open door while she stood next to him. He was wearing a shirt with an intricate, faded graphic design. She was subdued, a lovely young woman in a sand-colored tee shirt and shorts. They were talking intensely. “Surely those two are mad for each other!” I thought to myself. “They look so beautiful … by that yellow tree ”
I knew I would hold all those images in my mind’s eye – the deer, the tattoo, the leaf.
“Life is like that,” I said aloud to myself as I headed home: “It gives us beautiful moments that pass before we even know we’ve experienced them. And I wonder if we are aware …”
And that’s the moment when Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” poem came to mind. In the poem, he recalls that once, feeling alone and despondent, he became aware of a glorious field filled, as far as the eye could see, with “a host of golden daffodils.” Now, he knows that that moment of beauty will “flash upon [his] inward eye” today, and touch his heart.
It is good to remember we all have a storehouse of pleasant memories and experiences. Wordsworth finds those memories and images that come to him give him “bliss” and “pleasure.” Same with us. The prosaic and the marvelous are there, and Wordsworthian-like “pleasure” can be found in both.
This is partly why I love looking at all the houses and gardens in Durango, and why I like to see people talking and dancing together and why I like to see the elderly couples tending the botanic garden plantings and I love the entire garden itself. I like seeing the river. Any time and any where. I like the intensity of the bikers and runners and chess players and actors and all the golden athletes and artists who people this town.
There’s a kind of redemption in all this. And in all this, is our “bliss.”
Jo Gibson of Durango is a former English department adjunct faculty member at Cleveland State University and a freelance writer with the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
