Bloom Where You Are — Michelle McAfee

An unexpected moment of grief shared with an unusual friend

Late afternoon sun angles across the meadow, creating a facade of warmth on this chilly early March day. My black rubber chore boots squish in the mud left by the last rain as I make my way down the garden trail.

Moments before it is crushed beneath the weight of me, a soft purple glow poking up on the edge of the path catches my eye.

Hello Crocus.

Wow, spring is here for sure now. Never mind that tonight night it will dip to 22 degrees Fahrenheit and maybe snow a few inches. This little flower is brave, egging on the wrath of winter.

Maybe it knows spring has its back. In Southern Oregon, this time of year, Crocus means chill time is over. Literally.

I drop to my hands and knees and introduce myself to the spunky little thing. So tiny and delicate but the first to bust up through the dirt crust and declare, “I’m here! Winter is over.” I wonder what it thinks of me when it sees a giant human staring at it? I slowly inhale the heady perfume of damp, decomposing pine needles and humus and decide to sit a while in the dirt next to my new friend.

Spring used to be the season I would most wear rose-colored glasses. Like peering through a 60’s View Master kid’s slide projector, spring was idyllic. The most beautiful, perfect season.

My 91-year-old friend and surrogate grandmother wonderfully wrecked that delusion one day when I sat with her on her back porch a couple of March’s ago.

“Lovely day, isn’t it? Look at all the daffodils blooming!” I swung my hand toward them, across my line of sight, as if casting seeds. Her eyes followed my gesture and rested on the yard flowers.

“Yes, they are so beautiful,” a long pause followed, and I thought she disappeared into a daydream.

“Oh, the violence of spring.”

“What?” My head whipped around to see if she was joking. She was not.

She looked at me and smiled softly.

“My mother, a long time ago, used to tell me spring was the most violent time of year. Just look. All those little flowers breaking through the dirt. Buds bursting and morphing themselves into leaves. Caterpillars changing into a body totally foreign to the worm they once were. It can’t be easy.”

My chest constricted the way it does when a shard of deep truth enters my awareness. It never occurred to me to consider what those plants and critters might feel when they bloom.

I lower my face closer to Crocus. A dusting of pollen covers its stamens. “Soon, the bees will find you,” a more appropriate companion for sure.

A tear escapes my eye and rolls down my face. I wasn’t aware it was sitting there waiting to fall. A sharp breath sucks in when a wave of sadness pours through me. My flower friend is such a good listener, so I spill.

“An hour ago, I got a call and found out someone very close to me was diagnosed with cancer.” I choke on the last word. F that word. I hate it.

Crocus listens.

“It’s too early yet, to know what the path will be. They have to run more tests.”

There are times when the world cracks open and drops you an anvil from on high, a heavy knowing that you can never un-know. It takes time to get used to some words. Words too heavy to hold inside but too raw yet to share with another human.

The damp ground holds me there for a long time until my eyes scan the pine trees swaying above us in the afternoon breeze. I notice the sun lower on the horizon, casting long tree-shadows into the forest.

There are chores in the garden that need tending. I can’t sit here all night. I’ll freeze. I’m only human.

I stand up and reach my hands toward the sky. Some of the day’s heaviness dissolves into the ground, leaving me a little lighter in mind and heart. I bid farewell to Crocus and continue the trek to the garden, which happens to be a mess right now. Like me.

The last storm scattered row covers, blew faucet insulators off, and tossed flats and gallon pots every which way. Old sunflower stalks bend over together, revealing the direction the 40 mph brute came from. Bent, but not broken.

As my hands busy themselves watering plants in the greenhouse, my mind drifts.

Unknowns are so scary. But they are necessary for adjusting to new terrain. Nothing stays the same. Nothing. Even when you die, your body becomes the soil. The space called Unknown gets our attention because it suspends us in mid-air for a while and disrupts our normal.

It shifts the ground beneath our feet and says, “Hey, get ready, things are about to change.”

I drain and wrap the last hose, then batten down the garden implements. It never hurts to prepare for the next storm. The path that winds home is the path Crocus lives on. I stop one more time in the dusky light and quietly thank it.

Yes, I understand if you think I’m nuts for talking to a flower.

But what if I’m not nuts?

It’s too easy for us, in this screen-saturated world, to forget we are wild creatures who have been domesticated. There are times when our feral hearts can only be consoled by something soft growing in the dirt.

You don’t have to go off the rails and live in a cave for a month to remember who you are. Just go outside. Find a flower, a blade of grass, or a worm, and introduce yourself. You might just get a message back, in the form of a feeling flitting around in your rib cage, like I did.

And I’ll share that message with you.

Right now in this very moment you are okay.

You are not alone.

The wild things love you.

Trust the Unknown.

And, when spring comes… bloom.

The grass is no greener than here.

Bloom where you are.

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