I love spring. I love the return of old friends and the surprise of whether a plant will have survived the Texas version of winter. Some plants need the cold in order to thrive (like tulips and daffodils), and others do not (all tropicals). Some plants go dormant and look dead and others just look sad until the war weather wakes them up again and new growth appears. Personally, I love the bulbs. They totally disappear during the summer so that you probably even forget where exactly they are planted. And then in spring, a welcome return of their little green sprouts coming up and beautiful, if somewhat short-lived, blossoms. I remember once I bought a bag of like 100 bulbs and set them out in swaths, knowing that come spring they would all be popping up and make all that digging worth it.

But every once in a while (guilt flows from me on this one…honestly, it isn’t as infrequent as my pocketbook might prefer), I buy a greenhouse-raised-already-blooming plant that is designed to be a one-time-only-enjoy-it-now and I attempt to keep it alive and encourage it to rebloom, if possible. I have mixed results with that, but I am always hopeful. Sometimes they can live as houseplants, sometimes I can get them to grow outdoors in summer and bring them inside for the winter if they can’t handle frost but are worth keeping from year to year (Desert Rose, I’m looking at you, sweetheart)

I bought a hyacinth in full bloom last year at Trader Joe’s and I thought: it’s so pretty, Texas is too hot, but since it’s a bulb, I could try to keep this as a houseplant. I kept it indoors until the overwhelming scent of its flowers forced me to exile it to the outside table on my back patio, where I could still see it but not smell it. I know the Texas summer sun is much too hot for this gentle flower to be outside, but also my nose is much too sensitive for this flower to be inside my living space. So in an effort to keep it, after it finished its spring blooming I planted it under some trees, which, at my house, that area gets full sun in spring and fall, but gets full shade in summer (side note: this phenomenon does make it very difficult to grow things in this space). With this combo, however, a spring-flowering sun bulb just might be satisfied…if it survives the summer *and* isn’t so delicate as a nursery plant that it can’t adjust to this new environment. I had nothing to lose, right?

In January, I saw little green sprouts coming up – and honestly, I had forgotten about this plant’s existence in my garden so it took an extra effort to identify it – and today, as I looked outside to survey last night’s storm damage, I found not one but *two* stalks, blooming and beautiful. Are they as tall as last year’s flower stalk? No. But not only did the plant survive, it gave birth to a new bulb. In unfamiliar territory. In much harsher weather. How exciting!!!

This seems to be a rather obvious commentary on resilience. However, I join the ranks of those who are frustrated with our culture’s current idealization of resiliency and heroism for those enduring unnecessary trauma for the sake of lionizing their ability to handle being tormented (and frankly, to excuse the tormentors). Resiliency is important, yes. However, there is also another adage here: if a plant doesn’t bloom in the location you’ve planted it, you don’t blame the plant. You move it to the environment to which it is more suited (more or less direct sun, more or less drainage, soil pH, etc). To be explicit, this one suggests to people that if they aren’t thriving, it isn’t because they themselves are bad, but they are not in an environment conducive to their health and happiness, so change *that*. Which is inspiring in another way. Yet….this reality only applies to people (in a healthy way) when the change is self-determined. I can change my circumstances/environment…sometimes, but not always. And I certainly don’t want someone else to put themselves in the role of “gardener” over my life and determine where I should be planted (*cough* forced migration *cough*). And also, that can offer someone the opportunity to play the victim: I can’t thrive here, I’m stuck there, and I don’t need to change me, just my circumstances (that only works in some situations, not all of them; the same advice does not apply equally nor appropriately to every person in every situation).

So I am unsatisfied with both of these “life lessons from my garden.” If you know me, you know I always seek a third way. If the gift I’m looking for here isn’t about resiliency and it isn’t about change, what is it? I sowed this seed a long time ago and I even forgot it was there, but then when the time and conditions were right, it came back, and once again captured my awareness, and seemed as if it were a complete surprise and a gift. I could pat myself on the back for my efforts back then that are reaping rewards now, but that’s another motivational-speaker-type adage I’m avoiding today. Today I simply choose to appreciate the plant’s presence. I’m simply sitting in this moment, gazing at the beauty of this plant and saying: Wow, I love that color. Nature is winking at me and I am smiling.