Snow Flowers
I made a discovery on one of those relentless January days: two of my houseplants had flowered.
One of the small brightnesses. A violet.
January was hard. Here in the Midwest, it snowed and snowed and snowed. A glance out the window gave snow globe vibes, but glances out the window were rare; we kept curtains snugly closed against the brutal cold beyond them.
Meanwhile, national headlines blared and blared and blared, a blizzard of news. Sometimes wildly alarming. Sometimes vaguely, distantly unsettling. But no matter the threat level it just. Kept. Coming.
Both felt unfair. Our family was already dealing with a lot. It seemed to me everyone we knew were already dealing with a lot: a colleague moving a loved one into hospice, a coach canceling practice because her teen had run away, a daycare provider closing her business for a few days while she grieved the death of her sister.
Life tends to keep life-ing, of course, but doing so to a background symphony of ever piling snow and the anxiety of a country that feels increasingly unstable seemed extra unfair.
And in spite of a reel of “bad things happen when good people look away” running through my head, I felt only capable of looking one step at a time in front of me, keeping the curtains tightly shut and avoiding the news.
I made a discovery on one of those relentless January days: two of my houseplants had flowered.
These are plants I’ve had for years with no flowers. The kind that were once purchased from a grocery store check out line in full bloom but that quickly lost those blooms to become green greenies. I forgot, honestly, that they even could flower, but there they were: small brightnesses. And I thought, holy shit. It is so dark in here. I haven’t opened the curtains in days. And they bloomed.
And I thought there’s a story in there, of hope in the darkness. Of the coldest, darkest days bringing forth a small stunning beauty.
And lest you think I’m trite as a high school journalism teacher once labeled me, and which you probably also recognize if you’ve read any of my other pieces because I do have a tendency to lean Pollyanna, I also thought of course, flowers bloom when the plant is under duress and they’re making a last-ditch effort to seed before they die.
And I’ll also add to balance any triteness: my 3-year-old proudly clipped one of the flowers clean off with a pair of kid scissors within the day.
All of these things can be true. I suspect many small brightnesses burst from the cold chaos – sprouts of resolve, buds of community, personal growth. They may have been the seeding of duress. They may get clipped short. They may be tiny. They are still bright.
Because Life tends to keep life-ing, after all. Life the thing we live in may be brutal and incessantly wearing. But Life the thing we actually live? That’s fierce, too. It makes seeds that open only in fire, and chrysalides (had to Google that one!) that require heroic escape, and tiny brightnesses in the cold dark.
It’s February now. Above-freezing temperatures have returned, blaring the roofs into rivers of snowmelt. The runaway was found safe, the loved one passed away surrounded by family, the daycare reopened. Everyone’s personal blizzards continue to storm. The snow flowers on my plants have faded but the sturdy leaves are wide, welcoming the sun.
