A few thoughts on my birthday this year: The Devil’s Paintbrush

It struck me the other day when I read it as a name on a street sign: it’s mourning dove. It’s mourning dove! Of course it is. I knew this. I learned it once a while ago and yet my mind auto corrected it back to: morning dove. Why? Because as a child in the summertime I can always remember sitting out on the deck and hearing their gentle cooing- in the morning. It never occurred to me that their distinct sound, that I could replicate when I practiced flute, was a sad and mournful sound, thus earning them their title. No, my rose-colored glasses associated the most practical interpretation of their name to my own lived experience. And as it turns out- it’s not the only time.

I read a lot as a child. Summertime book challenges at the local library were always easily accomplished. The words I learned (and came to love using when I began writing) I learned by context in the things I read. This says a lot about how I viewed the world at the time that I absorbed their meanings.

As I grow older, and have google so accessible, I have become more curious to check definitions as I waiver over a choice word here or there in a story. I have been surprised that some of my favorite words lean slightly different than I thought-

For example:

Wistful

I think of wistful as tossing your hair back in a carefree gesture. I have used it to evoke the sense of being sentimental and reflective of times gone past but in more of a fleeting way- acknowledged, but not to be dwelled upon- wistful.

What it actually means according to an online definition: regretful longing, feeling sadness over something, the opposite of wishful (which is hopeful)

Somber

I think of somber as a more neutral term than it actually is. Like a day without sunshine but not necessarily with rain clouds. More still and without action. I perhaps pieced my own definition together by thinking it was a hybrid of sober and solemn.

What it actually means: dark and gloomy, of a dismal or depressing character

Melancholy

I think of melancholy as similar to bittersweet. And I love the word, because it always sounded pretty to me, like a musical term- like melody and orchard…

Nope! Definition: A feeling of sadness, with no obvious cause

I can also share with you one more example of my revisionist innocence, a realization I came to just last summer about this little road side wildflower:

We always called this Indian Paintbrush growing up. This was a respectful and endearing term, as I always admired the murals on the rocks in the nearby reservation we drove through when we went up north. It was a highlight of the trips for me and it cemented the thought of the natives to our area being skilled artists and painters.

Turns out- this is actual Indian Paintbrush:

When I mentioned this to my dad he casually remarked that he knew. And I was thinking- “what!?! I have been calling it the wrong thing my whole life! How could you have lead me down such a path of misinformation!?!”

Turns out the actual name for this admired wildflower is not so pretty.

Devil’s paintbrush- Devil’s! I could not have imagined a worse nickname to have to relearn.

So where do I go from here? What does it all mean? It means I’m a glass half full type of girl after all. It means that I read a story and met a character and I gave them hope and promise even when the author did not. It means I really believed the doves were named for the time of the day we spent together, because as a child and a teenager I was so connected to the outside world that this shaped every memory of a summer morning for me.

It means that when I see the ditch dotted in fiery orange and red I imagine the mural on an old rail road trestle that has long since been demolished.

I suppose I should relearn these things correctly, take off the rose-colored glasses. But all I really want for my birthday is an excuse not to do just that. There will be plenty of time to look wistfully over my shoulder at those past summers. Plenty of time to miss the way things once were. Plenty of time to listen to the doves cry and weep alongside them. Right now, in this season of life- I would rather celebrate the sunrise. I would rather see the promise in the world that a younger version of me never needed any help seeing.

I don’t want to be “anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately.“

I would rather be me.

(quoted song lyrics from Gavin Degraw)

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