A Carpet of Trilliums

It was a spectacular 60-degree day on Crutcher’s Bench on March 29. Walking a path near the rushing creek, I glimpsed the season’s first Trillium. Several more of those delicious spring heralds appeared. In fact, I cannot remember a year when the Trillium flower has appeared in such abundance on Crutcher’s Bench.

Two days later the weather turned. There were days of wild wind, snow and hail. Warmed by a crackling wood fire, I thought of those trilliums and wondered whether the delicate blooms would be killed off or survive freezing temperatures and extreme weather.

Spring weather returned and there they were, those rugged flowers…a little bent and battered in places but still lovely. I was struck by the metaphor. Those Trilliums are rather like us. We humans open strong and willing, and survive all manner of life’s batterings. A flawed lot, most of us manage a core of integrity, compassion, and humor.

Here on the mountain, our modes of survival and communication are sometimes stellar…as in responding to the recent flood, which brought out the best in most of us. Sometimes too, those all too human flaws surface.

Drama, gossip, jumping to conclusions without factual inquiry are human flaws that sometimes batter our rural community like hail on Trilliums. After our high water event, when some Lolo Pass dwellers were stranded without phone communication, some folks were in high dudgeon about lack of cell coverage. The outcry for cell towers was ubiquitous and leveled with criticism of those who had successfully defeated placing a cell tower on Benchwood Lane.

The fact that the Benchwood Lane location would NOT have brought cell phone coverage to Lolo Pass residents was seemingly ignored, as was any inquiry into whether a tower was planned in a location that would actually serve our community. After all, why would one resort to ferreting out actual facts when drama and gossip are entertaining?

We all fall prey to expressing our flawed parts from time to time even when those flaws batter others. Spring, Trilliums, and shining though life’s storms remind me to trade drama and gossip for integrity and compassion.