The Daffodil Lesson

It was a bleak rainy day, and I had no desire to drive up the winding mountain road to my daughter Caronlyn’s house. But she had insisted that I come see something at the top of the mountain.

So here I was, reluctantly making the two-hour journey through fog that hung like veils. By the time I was, how thick it was near the summit. I’d gone too far to turn back. Nothing could be worth this, I thought as I inched along the dangerous highway.

“I’ll stay for lunch, but I’m heading back down as soon as the fog lifts,” I announced when I arrived.

“But I need you to drive me to the garage to pick up my car” Caronlyn said. “Could we at least do that?”

“How far is it”? I asked.

“About three minutes”, she said, “I’ll drive—I’m used to it.”

After ten minutes on the mountain road, I looked at her anxiously. “I thought you said three minutes.”

She grinned. “This is a detour (绕道).”

Turning down a narrow track, we parked the car and got out. We walked along a path that was thick with old pine needles. Hug e black-green evergreens towards over us. Gradually the peace and silence of the place began to fill my mind.

Then we turned a corner, and I gasped in amazement.

From the top of the mountain, sloping for several acres across folds and valleys, were rivers of daffodils in radiant bloom. A profusion (大量) of color — from the pales t ivory to the deepest lemon to the most vivid salmon — blazed like a carpet before us. It looked as though the sun had tipped over and spilled gold down the mountainside. At the center there was a waterfall of purple flowers. Here and there were coral-colored tulips. Western bluebirds frolicked (嬉戏) over the heads of the daffodils, their tawny breasts and sapphire wings like a flutter of jewels.

A riot of question filled my mind. Who created such beauty? Why? How?

As we approached the home that stood in the center of the property, we saw a sign that read: “Answers to the Question. I Know You Are Asking.”

The first answer was “One Woman-Two Hands, Two Feet, and Very Little Brain.” The second was: “One at a Time,” The third: “Started in 1958.”

As we drove home, I was so moved by what we had been, I could scarcely speak. “She changed the world,” I finally said, “one bulb at a time. She started almost 40 years ago, probably just the beginning of an idea, but she kept at it.”

The wonder of it would not let me go. “Imagine,” I said, “if I’d had a vision and worked at it, just a little bit every day, what might I have accomplished?”

Carolyn looked at me sideways, smiling. “Start tomorrow,” she said.

“Better yet, start today.”

It is William Shakespeare, the great coiner, who is given credit for the word. Coriolanus, one of his characters, compares going into exile (流放) to a “lonely dragon” retiring to his cave. He was talking about a physical state: someone who was lonely was simply alone. Then, thanks to the Romantic poets, the word took on emotional meanings. Loneliness became a condition of the soul. For William Wordsworth, who famously “wandered lonely as a cloud”, the natural world offered an escape from negative feelings of loneliness — a host of flowers could provide “cheerful company”. Today, loneliness is often seen as a serious public-health problem, creating the feeling of disconnection.

In his book Solitude, Netta Weinstein, a psychology professor wonders the rewards of time spent alone. He begins with an account of stories of solitude created by figures such as Michel Montaigne, a writer, and Edward Hopper, a painter. Netta then draw on laboratory work, interviews and surveys to clarify how being alone really affects the human mind.

It is common to treat loneliness and solitude as synonyms (同义词), but they are not. The author suggests that what is negatively described as one state can be positively expressed as the other. Loneliness, often perceived as negative, can potentially be transformed into a positive experience of solitude. To this end he emphasizes how being alone can help restore people and offers practical advice. In a noisy world, he argues, people should make time to be alone, away from attention-grabbing motives.

The book’s interviewees mostly regard a lack of company as a contributor to autonomy. But this depends on whether solitude is desirable or not. Enforced solitude, such as that experienced by prisoners, typically leads to nothing but suffering. Elective solitude, by contrast, affords space for self-reflection. It can open the door to “peak experiences” such as wonder, harmony, and happiness. In a highly-connected digital age, however, many readers do not fancy their chances of ever taking a long enough break to have such experiences.