“I don’t know if I’m brave. But I know that wherever the wind takes me, I bloom anyway.”
I keep four orchids in my home. I’ve collected orchids over my relationship because my boyfriend gives me flowers with roots! Lol. Now I have four of them on our kitchen window ledge.
Coming from a tropical island, I grew up with orchids because my mom absolutely loves them. I thought for sure I’d come to hate flowers because she spent more hours of her nonworking days with her orchids (granted, her orchid garden was huge!) than with us, her children. Plus, we never could run around as freely, even though we had a spacious lawn, because we might damage her orchids.
All that history said, I did discover my natural and almost inevitable love for plants and the soil (thanks, Mom and Grandpa!) right before the pandemic hit. I started a porch garden with three baby plants that I got from my mom because I read in a book about Japanese culture the concept of engawa (縁側) (sunset porch).
This book, called Simple Living by Shunmyo Matsuo, described how we can integrate some Zen practices for simplicity in our daily life.
One of the “100 Daily Practices from a Japanese Zen Monk” that he recommended was to make your own small garden on your porch, to recreate the essence of being in a Zen garden in your own home. Another practice that equally captivated me was to make your own “sunset steps,” a neighborhood in Japan, known for being a contemplative place, I imagine. The author recommended finding a place in your own neighborhood or home to observe the sunset.
As someone who worked at home, these two concepts captivated me, and I decided to merge them. I started a small garden on the back porch of my apartment, from which I can also observe the sunset.
Fast-forward six years, and I am living in Europe. Far from my mother’s orchids and far from the sunset I knew that came around the same time all year.
Now in a four-season country, I’m almost being taught that there is a time to plant, a very short window when the soil has thawed enough to cultivate, but not late enough that your produce would meet the peak of the summer. The timing has to be just right.
But that’s for outdoor planting. Indoors, I’ve kept my own practice of cultivating the soil of my plants intuitively. Replanting them and relocating them intuitively, just as I started my small garden back in my small apartment.
Two days ago, I saw one of my orchids with a twig of flowers starting to bloom, which surprised me because we have officially entered fall, when most plants are preparing to hibernate for the winter. And just yesterday, I noticed two other orchids have budding flowers too.
So apparently, three out of my four orchids are blooming. I just dubbed them my winter blooms. So stubborn are they in their individuality that they’re producing flowers in a season when most of the plants are taught by the season to shed their leaves, sleep, and just concentrate on surviving till the next spring.
But not my orchids. They’re blooming anyway. Quite a mirror to my own description of myself, whenever I remember the wild life I’ve lived, leaving behind everything I know, selling everything I’ve built, for a chance at a bigger, grander adventure that is life beyond my comfort zone.
I used to say that too, when people asked how I could be so brave doing the things that I do. I just say, “I don’t know if I’m brave. But I know that wherever the wind takes me, I bloom anyway.”
🌸
Thank you for reading today’s note.
Lots of love and light,
Faith
