Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all. This is an abbreviated post due to the fact that I worked all day and am a bit tired. Also, I don’t really have a topic. Everyone is talking about Game of Thrones, and by a fluke, I caught the Season Eight premiere last Sunday. I previously blogged about my impressions after catching a few episodes of Season Seven, but I didn’t even realize the show was on hiatus last year, so that shows you how much I know about Game of Thrones. I do like the dragons, though.

Easter Mystique

Easter is usually a fairly quiet holiday for me, and this one was not an exception. It rained during the early part of the day, but I was charmed to see sunlight slanting through the kitchen blinds in the afternoon while I sat at the table. In Kentucky, you can literally see any kind of weather on Easter, from snow to near-summer conditions.

I baked some lemon cookies in the shape of eggs and have been enjoying those, but what I really wanted was an Easter basket. I suppose I could have made one, but it's really not the same thing as believing in the Easter bunny and waking to find he's left one for you on Easter morning. The funny thing is that I never even liked some of the candy in those baskets. It didn't seem to matter, though: the charm was in the belief, the magical appearance of the basket, and all the bright trappings of spring that came with the package.

The baskets we got were almost always the same. They were covered with plastic and filled with shredded plastic grass, among which were nestled one fairly sizable chocolate bunny (hollow), several chocolate-covered marshmallow bunnies, a package of jelly beans, and small chocolate eggs, individually wrapped in pastel foils. There was a mass of stubborn tape attaching the candies to each other and the basket. The chocolate bunny often had a slightly waxy taste and was too much to finish off all at once. I never liked the chocolate-covered marshmallows, but like any self-respecting kid found it hard to bypass them -- or any other kind of candy. Unlike the treasure trove that was a Halloween catch, Easter candy was usually gone in a day or so, ephemeral as the season itself.

Easter candy tended to be almost too sweet, and other than the solid chocolate eggs, wasn't that great, but somehow the whole thing was more fun than it should have been. I can still remember the way the baskets smelled, that combination of chocolate-infused plastic grass and essence of jelly beans, and the innocent joy of believing that there was such a creature as the Easter bunny. Actually, the last time I received an Easter basket, I think I had figured out where it was coming from, and so the wonder was a little less, though I still enjoyed the basket, which consisted of a plastic bucket and included a small shovel perfect for digging in the sand at the beach. (That was the only time I remember getting a Florida-themed Easter basket, on what I think was our last Easter in Florida.)

If I were going to put one together for myself, I would put in some Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, some Mint Meltaways, a Cadbury egg or two, some gourmet chocolate bars with flavors like orange, sea salt, or raspberry, and maybe some jelly beans just for color. That would be enough sweets to nibble on for several weeks, and the candy would all be superior . . . but I still don't think it would match those Easter baskets of long ago. It's nearly impossible to reproduce certain experiences in which the mystique elevates very simple elements into something that defies explanation -- and beginner's mind has something to do with it, too.

I Am Your Labyrinth

I visited the Descanso Gardens this morning to celebrate Easter. It's a little off the beaten track, requiring the negotiation of several freeways and a stomach for wild driving. It was a windy, cool day, with the sun and clouds chasing each other and people shivering a little in their Easter finery. I had brought a wide-brimmed hat that I don't wear at home, since it never seems appropriate anywhere, but it was perfect today with my silky rose cardigan, floaty white blouse, and movie-star sunglasses. It's nice when the wardrobe gods smile. (That must be chiefly Athena, whose department included weaving and textiles.)

I've sometimes wondered why I bought that hat, which has been languishing in my room for several years, looking a little superfluous. This proves there was never anything wrong with the hat -- it just lacked the right setting.

Anyway, there we all were at Descanso, zooming around amid the blooms in our spring attire, looking a little bit like flowers ourselves. Naturally, I couldn't help thinking about what the philosopher Slavoj Zizek said about flowers. I was introduced to his work by my ex-boyfriend, and although I find some of his thinking hard to penetrate, I always remember what he said about the true purpose of flowers and the reason for their showiness. He remarked (tongue in cheek, I think) that flowers are inappropriate for children. There were many children of all ages in the garden today, excited about the Easter Egg hunt that was underway, oblivious of philosophers and their subversive ideas . . . but Zizek is right about one thing. Spring is about Eros.

Descanso is less manicured than my long-time favorite, the Huntington Gardens, a bit wilder and more rustic. Over the course of a two-hour ramble, I encountered such sights as a long, gorgeous bed of tulips in every spring hue imaginable; trails leading into wooded areas with views of the surrounding hills; native wildflowers; delicate roses; camellias of all kinds; blossoming cherry trees; a Japanese garden with a curved orange bridge; and a one-acre lilac garden. Also, a couple of surprises: the children's garden had a small hedge maze, and there was even a labyrinth of sorts. The research just won't leave me alone.

I wasn't looking for labyrinths today, but this one found me. Looking down into a clearing amid tall trees in the camellia garden, I saw what looked like a collection of small stone piers. When I went down to investigate, I found a plaque explaining the importance of the spiral in nature and the Fibonacci sequence, the numeral description of the spiral's shape. I had been standing in the center of the spiral for several minutes, looking around, when a little boy came by with his grandmother. She was trying to read the plaque and explain the math part of it, but his first instinct was to run into the middle of the spiral, yelling.

Watching him reminded me of how much I loved curving paths when I was little. When I was six or seven, my parents used to sometimes have business at an office building with a small enclosed courtyard. A walkway spiraled sinuously through the center of this courtyard, and I used to amuse myself by following it in and out, over and over, while my parents were inside. It was something about the shape of the path, so much more magical than a straight line, that drew me in, like the flowers draw in the bees. I imagined I was following the Yellow Brick Road.

To me, the labyrinth resembles a flower, a rose or a camellia, with its ever-tightening whorls protecting a mysterious center. A maze is another story, something more of a wild card and a puzzle than the regular and predictable unicursal labyrinth. I think they represent two different things, or maybe two different ways of thinking about the same thing. The children flinging themselves at them today treated them both like games, and maybe that's what they are. The labyrinth seems tamer, since there's only one way in and one way out (usually). But that simplicity, like Zizek's flowers, might mask a great secret. It's probably never good to underestimate what seems simple. Labyrinths can surprise you.

For instance: I was amazed to learn a few days ago that the Huntington Gardens has a labyrinth. What! Are you sure? I love the Huntington and have been there several times, but I have never heard of this labyrinth. It's a turf one, so it's even possible that I, the great labyrinth investigator, walked right over it. I would have said I had been all over those grounds, but I didn't have a clue this labyrinth existed. Hidden in plain sight . . . there's a lesson there.

So, another labyrinth for another day.