Flowering Quince

Photo by Bodhanaa. Chaenomeles speciosa or flowering quince growing outside our door

There is a day when spring arrives, when she demands that you open your windows and let her in. The cool fresh air cleanses and renews all the winter stuffiness. You have to keep your sweaters on, as it is not yet warm enough for open windows, but it can't be helped. It is a time of awakening and new promises. It is the time when the flowering quince bursts forth in blooms. In 1985 it was the first time I opened my home for Brian.

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I lived in a house on the beach. Manitou Drive. It smelled of the salt flats and mold. It had a wood stove. Already too many adult burdens and sorrows had accumulated there, broken hearts, an abortion, and sprained ankles halting a passion for long distance running. 

​It was also a house of healing. I was a Zen Buddhist and the sangha met weekly on the island for meditation and chanting. The sea in front of my eyes fed my soul. And I had met Brian Brogan.

We were finally going to see each other again, he driving north to my house from Oregon. We had met on a Republic Airlines flight in December, and he had sent a letter to the restaurant in Seattle where I worked. We got to know each other over three months of writing letters and finally we were meeting again!

All the windows were open and the salt breeze was blowing in. The wood stove was burning and I was cleaning. There wasn't much to clean as I lived simply; a futon, a small table and two chairs, a rocking chair and a trunk. As the time grew near and I was finishing up, I went outside to see if anything was blooming. Flowering quince is one of the earliest bushes to bloom after winter, and the flowers had just opened. I cut three branches and put them in a vase. Such beauty in the color! Such beauty in three sparse branches!

He drove up. I walked outside. He got out of the car. My eyes saw a short man, not the man I had sat next to for 4 hours on the wine tasting flight. I turned and ran into the house. I didn't know it at the time, but he also had a thought, and had turned and gotten back in his car.

I stood inside the door not knowing what to do. It was like two magnets repelling each other - we had each turned away and ran. Later he said that when he saw me come out the door, I looked only 18 years old, and he turned away thinking I was too young to date. 

Floating minutes that seemed like it could have been hours or days later, we both turned back and met again.

He came inside and was greeted by me, the breeze and the Quince. He recited a line from a children's book that often gets repeated in our house, "Spring is a breezy, blossomy season, when everything is fresh and sweet and clean". 

He brought me gifts; an axe for cutting wood, slippers he had made himself, and poetry. I had never received such romantic gifts. We danced to "Good Time" by Bonnie Koloc, made crackers, and sat in the rocking chair and laughed.

We didn't know it yet, but we had a whole lifetime ahead of us. He planted a flowering quince bush for me years ago. Every spring when it blooms I think of that young love, beginnings, and beauty.

Bonnie Koloc singing "Good Time"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-8yUKO7i7I&list=PLdW-GIPIzutaflRKZFH09BoTdPbzekwZo&index=2 Bonn