Brigid

I Ran into Brigid today, quite by accident. It was in a warm swath of sunlight beneath a palm tree patch in front of aggressively blooming gardenias. She was dressed in orange tutu with long purple stockings and a fancy gold pair of Tevas. Her yellow blouse was carelessly open, down to a point, and her hair was electric red.

“Hi” she said, “Why are you staring?”

“Are you Brigid?” I impulsively asked.

“Well,” She sighed and looked off at the northern horizon, “ . . . yes.”

“I didn’t expect to run into you down here!” I exclaimed, “Not in east central Florida!”

“It’s a point of contention” she sadly replied, “But I am supposed to be everywhere today, you know.”

“But why down here? This place has never SEEN Winter, and it is certainly not here today.”

“Yeah, well, you see – well, I am not really THE Brigid, but a Brigid-in-training-to-be.”

I was stunned. “There’s more than ONE Brigid -- how on earth can that be?”

“Come on, man, even Santa Clause has helpers!”

“Oh, I see!” You are like one of those old Santas in Macy’s and Dillard’s, huh?”

Brigid took my hand in hers as we crossed the street to walk on the shining beach. “They send some of us down here for a fancy fling, next year we move north a state.”

“So you’ll be in North Carolina in - 2012?”

She crossed her arms and shivered. “I don’t want to even think about that - not right now.”

“I think they have this thing backward - you ought to come south a state each Winter.”

“Oh that too,” She said, “Someday I’ll be back - actually, I’ve been here before.”

“But won’t you be old by then?” I asked.

Now she smiled as we walked down toward the beach. “’Old’ is one of the great illusions of Winter.” and added “that’s part of my message.”

“Why your silly get-up?” I asked, pointing to her tutu.

“Well, “ she said as she gathered herself up, “Spring IS silly.”

“No!” Spring is NOT silly! We NEED Spring!”

“But that’s not really true,” Brigid sweetly smiled. “Spring always comes way too early.”

“No” I said. ”No, it always comes in way too late!”

Brigid walked out into the surf and spun around “The daffodils always come out too early, popping up out of the frost,” Bridget lifted her hands above her head, “ the forsythia blooms before it is ready to make it all the way through, the baby birds hatch out way too early and the baby possums are born too soon,too.”

“That’s only because Spring is late!”

Brigid smiled sweetly now, “Winter is the wisest of all the seasons, you know” and she brushed her bright red hair back from her twinkling green eyes. “and Winter has lessons to teach and the world has lessons to learn.”

I interrupted her “Oh Winter, bah - bah humbug, in fact! How can Winter teach us anything?”

Brigid continued, “The great message of the ages is that Spring is the child conceived in the glory of the harvest the year before, and Winter is the time for germination and to branch out and grow below the surface.” She continued now, “And the world has changed since last year's growth, and there are things the world needs to learn."

"But how can anybody learn anything when they are cold and frozen?"

"Winter is the time to send out roots, to try new passageways, to fix what went wrong last time. Winter is the time for pondering, for examining, for questioning and for resolutions." Brigid smiled again and lifted her arms up as if to hug all of heaven. "You should never wish for Spring to come but only to open your heart to Winter."

And as the sea twinkled behind her she too twinkled and vanished. Brigid was gone, and Spring was here.