Oh HELLO!!!
It has been a while, my loves. I have been focusing on my mental health, because Trump. I can't even. ANYWAY, I digress, on to more hopeful things.
I love flowers. When I was 4, my parents took me to pick up my first dog. She was a fluffy gray Old English/Black Lab mix. My dad told me I needed to think long and hard about the most perfect name for her. After several seconds of deep preschool contemplation, I chose "Tulip." At the time, tulips were my favorite flower. Since, we have lived with pets named Daffodil, Marigold, and Pepper Daisy. Also, a daughter nicknamed Lily. I would also have a daughter called Poppy, but the men in my family are not whimsical enough.
Flowers are my thing. I love to get up close and peer into their little flower hearts. Stripey pansy faces, layer upon layer of camellia blossoms, the white, fragrant trumpets of jasmine in Spring make my heart full. My favorites, though, might be humble morning glories. They persevere through brutal Southern Summer by closing themselves down tight in the hottest hot of the afternoon, only to regale themselves of the dewy morning crispness(if 78 and 85% humidity is crisp) by casting the sun's rays back to her from their bright, tear-dropped trumpets. They make me wax poetic.
I threw some morning glory seeds in front of our fence about 10 years ago and they have flourished! Every year, they find a new place to spread--this year it was the camellia--and we have to remove them to keep them from taking over the garden, à la kudzu. But they grow back along the fence early every Summer and die back sometime between late September and late October. This morning, they greeted me like this:
The big bustle of beauty at the top of the fence is show-stopping, but the flower that caught my eye was the one down toward the bottom. If I were a morning glory, I would be that one. I feel like I am always far from where I want to be. Personal growth is really hard for me. I start out at the top of my game, with makeup on and my hair done, but after a while, I desperately need to shut down, pulling myself inward to muster my resources until it's my time to shine once more. I come back again and again, getting up to greet the day with my goals in mind and my face turned to the sun. I grow a little bit every day and I keep showing up, after some much needed quiet, just like that lone flower. We might make it to the top, we might not.
The glory is in the trying.
Keep finding the sun, friends.
Love,
Corks
