Watch and Wait and Water…But Not Too Much

Do you think I killed it?

No you didn’t kill it.

Are you sure? Maybe I overwatered it.

No you didn’t.

I feel so bad. It only lasted a few weeks.

You didn’t kill it. Flowers die.

Right.

But of course I know that…

My husband and I received an early Christmas gift at the end of November: a pot holding an amaryllis bulb. I think the last one we ever had was in 1980. Needless to say, the memory of it and its life span has faded.

Directions were thankfully simple – just water when the soil feels dry. Of course then I had to remember to CHECK the soil & make that determination, but in my overwhelmed mind I managed to call up enough neurons to handle the task.

I have had flowering plants before – with varying degrees of success, but never paid such close attention before.

Not to sound melodramatic…but when faced with a pot of dirt and a bulb…meh?…one can forget the potential. As in…what happens next.

No big deal, nothing special, except…it is.

As I felt myself closing in and closing up during these past 8 months, I was drawn to that pot of potential (should I call it magical? maybe so). Glanced its way when I walked through the living room. Curiosity got the better of me – as it often does.

And then nature began to do what nature does. Up close on a shelf under our picture window…safe from the cold wintery scene a glass width away.

And…because it’s what I do…I documented. Cheered it on. Rotated it in the sun. Fashioned a coat hanger as a stake. Moved it back and forth from its spot by the window to keep me company where I sat at my desk in the next room. As the sunlight moved from window to window, so did the pot. I didn’t name this Amaryllis as I did my Coleus plant in college (Calvin Coleus), but I should have. I felt an unusual affinity for Ms. A (as I will now call it/her – after all it gave forth life)….

My own Breaking Happy News.

Watch and wait. A theme for 2020. Through the loneliness of holidays in isolation. Swirling uncertainty about the direction my country was headed. The uneasy realization that I took way too much for granted for too many years.

The over-riding questions were my last thoughts before sleep and my first thoughts upon waking…Would goodness prevail? Would those in charge do the right thing?

Meanwhile goodness was happening in front of my eyes…

The unimaginable kept happening in 2020. And then again six days into 2021. This time it wasn’t stacks of bodies in refrigerated trucks or lines of cars with desperate people needing food. It wasn’t only the virus anymore. The shock of January 6th played out repeatedly on every news cycle for days.

Meanwhile goodness continued in front of my eyes…

SoCS: Stream of Consciousness Saturday – This week’s prompt is “the beginning, the end.” Write about the beginning of something and the end of something. 

Cee’s Flower of the Day