This is the irrational season in Texas - a far cry from the general cold and gray of our Decembers, here and now the wildflowers bloom like fireworks on the highway. I write about this every year, and every year I am still struck anew by this kind of beauty: bluebonnets waving a greeting next to the Texas primroses, the prairie fire, the others whose names I am still learning.
It is not the ocean, not the rugged beauty of a cold gray sea, but this is a blanket of completely superfluous beauty, springing up from nowhere, tractors combing the otherwise useless in between spaces scattering seeds. The signs along the highways say “wildflowers in progress,” like a parade that marches on. They are elaborate, teeming with loveliness - have you seen this before, how they keep existing, how they riot against our hurried world, how they just keep blooming?
I started thinking on my drive home from the barn tonight how very hard it is to learn things. What a risk we take in not knowing, in pursuing knowledge. Today my lesson was hard not only on me physically—and it is always that, always right at the edge of my own body’s capacities—but mentally, too. I didn’t understand how to do what I wanted. I couldn’t get my body to connect to the horse, I couldn’t get myself to connect to the ride, I struggled and struggled and when we were finished and we were walking around, cooling off, I felt a strange sadness at how hard it is.
It’s so risky, learning. We don’t know how long it will take us to understand something before we start trying. We are in front of - almost always - someone who already knows and who already can and we have to try in front of them. Learning is this exposure, this terrifying leap -
and what if I never understand?
what if my body never rises up into the next thing?
what if … it hangs there, the possibility of failing at this.
And rising up alongside my car are these flowers. They dance with the wind, they bow their heads along my way, they wave me onwards. If God has such incredibly superfluous beauty always lying in wait for us, perhaps - if this is faith, to hold even the smallest flicker of space in our hearts for an absurdly beautiful thing to exist -
how can I keep from seeking it?
How could I keep from trying, even when I am sad at my own ignorance, even while I am struggling - leg on, but not there, shoulders, but not there, half halt, but not like that, walk to trot and trot to canter but not like that - even then, how can I keep from seeking to understand?
Something absurdly beautiful might be on the other side. This horse might nuzzle my shoulder just because. My children might tell me a truth I had never before considered. A book might render me speechless.
If I do not seek, everything will still bloom. But if I do not risk the terrifying humility of learning, I will not witness it.
And I want to.
This is so beautiful because it is honest and tender and humble. You. capture the unexpected joy of learning beside the fear that inhibits us and stunts our growth.
Hilary, this is beautiful and so timely for me to read tonight. I just took my first class in my beginner’s watercolor course. There is definitely humility in learning. It’s hard but I want to learn. Thank you for this!