Tomorrow’s Flowers

This morning I read from a journal I kept during yoga teacher training several years ago. I opened to a page marked with one lone leaf, an indicator of the time of year this entry marked—it was early autumn in Charleston, daylight lingered well into evening and the humidity was still ripe.

I love how journals can freeze moments and return them to you through just a splattering of your own words scribbled down. Stories that are written down tend to remain, after all, and so I employ my journals to keep me honest with memory. As I’m sure you can attest, sometimes we tend to remember what we want to remember, whether it’s factual or not.

I was on a walk that day. We were on our last break during a long weekend of training and I’d walked down Spring Street to grab a cup of coffee. I recall picking up this leaf after watching it being pulled by gravity down to the sidewalk ahead of me, the branches above full of loosening leaves beginning to turn those vibrant shades of fiery hues that come just before they all fall to the earth and leave the trees bare to face the winter.

Little did I know on that day when I tucked this golden red leaf in my journal that I was on the cusp of my own winter. That is the gift and also the curse of time—we can’t see what’s ahead of us. We can only move ahead with what some call faith and some call courage and some call experience.

I opened to the page that held the lone leaf. A single passage was written.

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.

(Let’s read that again.)

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.

(Note: These are not my words. I picked them up in conversation during aforementioned training weekend, although I cannot say to whom credit is to be given other than it is not me.)

…the seeds of today.

Oh man—what a wild ride—to write something down because it feels significant, only to realize that its significance would not truly find you until several years later? (Yet another reason I keep the journals close by.)

Throughout this wintering, what have I sown in all these minutes and days and weeks? What hope do I have for the flowers of tomorrow?

May I be honest?

Up until very recently, the seeds in my mind have been watered with anger. Lots and lots of anger. And sadness. And fear. And exhaustion. These are the feelings I’ve been tending to. I’ve been worried. I’ve been pensive. I’ve felt, at times, underwater.

Come to think of it, I’d like to think that these particular thoughts are not seeds. Perhaps these are merely weeds and, if so, perhaps I need not worry because weeds are inevitable. Every garden is burdened with them. And as a matter of fact, pulling weeds is one of my favorite ways to relieve stress. Wait…is that irony? I’ve been too distracted to wonder.

My ex-husband planted things for me. In our yard he planted forsythia and hydrangeas and roses and hostas and a japanese maple and lantana and iris and jasmine and when I once asked him why? he responded, so you’ll always have fresh flowers to cut. He was a darling to me sometimes, and this was one of the dearest things I’d ever heard. I fought for us because of moments and gestures just like this. I trusted that he knew me and I loved that he showed me in his way. I’m angry that this wasn’t enough. My appreciation and his thoughtfulness—why was this not enough to keep our garden in bloom?

When I left my marriage, I stayed as physically close as I could to my sons’ father so the chore of traveling between two homes would be as minimal as possible for our children. I rented a townhouse on the west side our little neighborhood, my home nudged right between their two schools. (I first moved to the very house next door, but that is another story for another day.)

D tells me he liked that home. On the day we walked over to show it to him, he exclaimed It’s a GREEN HOUSE—like the place where things grow! Indeed, my love. It was a place I so wanted our new start to blossom and bloom.

Just before Christmas last year, I bought a hyacinth bulb from Trader Joe’s. I remember the very day I bought it—it was another balmy December day in Charleston and I thought this lovely pink blossoming bulb and its delicious fragrance would bring joy into that green house. And it did bring me joy. She bloomed like a boss and eventually her stems began to sag with the weight of her own glory as the spectacle of a flower in full bloom faded. I’d read on the tag when I bought it that it could be kept to bloom again next year, and even the next. All I needed to do was trim the spent bloom from its papery bulb base and store it to spend the spring and summer and fall in a dark and dormant place. This was one of the last things I did when I packed up that green house to move to Alabama for yet another new start. I erased all evidence of that hyacinth in bloom, gently placed its severed bulb into a small terracotta pot, drove the moving truck with this little pot tucked underneath the dashboard of the passenger seat and found a dark cabinet corner for it to hide, not once but twice in the year of absolute upheaval that was 2021 (which was really just the thirteenth month of 2020).

She’s been resting for a good long while. Dormant. Still. Patient. I’d nearly forgotten about her until I saw someone post a prized Christmas amaryllis on their Facebook page.

I wondered…

I went to the dark cabinet corner and there she was. I found the vase she came in, filled it with water, pulled away a few layers from her bulb and brushed off what appeared to be small roots shooting from her base. I put her in my kitchen window.

And, would you believe it, the hyacinth emerged. Delicious, crisp fragrance and all. She came back and she bloomed, right on time.

If this isn’t a post full of metaphor I have nothing left to give.

Here’s the obvious question I’m presenting here: will the seeds I’ve been tending to in this winter season bloom into something brilliant or broken? Will my decisions provide enough sunlight to coax the cold grasp from what’s regenerating within me? Will the cigarette I smoked last week singe the petals of my potential? (Maybe not, but I’m admitting said cigarette to emphasize the grotesque behavior that winter can beckon—behavior that is cheap and dirty, although cigarettes these days are definitely NOT cheap and if my sons are reading this know that THIS IS DISGUSTING behavior that results in poor health, smelly clothing, bad breath, etc.).

In a season like my winter, in the depth of the tunnel where no oxygen or sunlight could coax a bloom from its bud, it’s hard to imagine a garden of any sort. And in the moments that have felt stickiest, it’s easy to mourn the garden that my once husband planted because the cuttings from all we planted are still raw even though they are wilted. Despite the end of us, the changing of seasons will bring all those plants and shrubs and trees into blossom once again, because nature still moves even when we can do nothing but stand still and let time pass.

Like the hyacinth.
There is life here within.
Tomorrow’s flowers are pushing their way to the surface.

I feel that warmth. I see new growth on the branches above me. I’m not tired anymore, no longer angry. I sat still for a long winter. I let myself feel the totality of the death of my marriage and I allowed it to turn from green to golden red to brown and brittle and then nothing at all. I will remember it all.

The hyacinth has been trimmed and stored away until next winter. The days are getting longer and I keep finding myself chasing the light, running right towards it. This is a good sign. This lets me know that I’m growing. Just like flowers turn to face the sun, I’m opening towards a warmth that is bright and bountiful.

Tomorrow’s flowers will be the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I know this because the seeds I’m holding in my heart are like nothing I’ve ever beheld.

Spring is just around the corner.
And I’m ready to bloom.

Photo credit: Oscar Helgstrand