“Bloom where you‘re planted.”

If you know me – you would know that I absolutely adore Spring. Growing up in the Highveld, where all of nature died and was smothered by black frost and whatever remained was set to fire – I was yearly amazed at how something that looked to be dead, can grow and turn green and luscious. How the touch of rain and sun can transform something that looked like a sepia vision into colours that tickled my eyeballs and sat in the warmest place in my heart. Even though Spring was still cold, I could always feel myself defrost a little bit as well. I have learned that my moods go from nostalgic in Fall, to grumpy in Winter, to joyous in Spring and happily content in Summer.

Where I live now, it plays a little bit with my equilibrium. Because of the heat, Fall and Spring lasts but a second long. Some Winter days are still hotter than many places in South Africa’s summers. It’s slightly confusing. And I found myself to appreciate the variants of cold more than what I used to.

I do not like pink roses. I have been very vocal about it for the majority of my adult life. When I was in primary school, my dad took me and my friend to the nursery and we could both pick out a rose bush. She picked out a beautiful dark red rose and I picked out a pink rose with an orange tint. Maybe my aversion to pink roses started partially because of those memories and partially because I like a wild garden. I want to feel engulfed by nature. I am not a cookie-cutter type of person and an English rose garden has no appeal to me.

 In April of last year, I received a potted pink rose-plant as a ‘gift’. The instruction was to keep it alive. Now, if I can tell you about the emotional turmoil that this plant created – I will not be overexaggerating. My mission was to keep this plant alive at all cost, but because of my unfamiliarity with plants, I was in a constant battle of underwatering, overwatering, not enough sun, too much sun. Also, because it was in a guestroom, I had to deliberately remind myself to check on it. The pressure was immense and the emotional turmoil was absolutely symbolic.

In mid-September last year, I went away for about a week. I was distracted and focused on other things, so I didn’t even think of the pink potted plant before I left. I left it slightly underwatered. And when I finally returned and desperately wanted to keep it alive, I overfed it with water and green seaweed stuff. A week later, when the water still didn’t drain, I realised that I have failed. I couldn’t save it anymore.

I have never cried over plants in my life. Plants and flowers to me are a source of joy, but if they died – I would just get new ones. But that Saturday I cried. I cried over this pink potted rose-plant, that I never wanted. That I never asked for. That was pushed into my life and somehow along the way – I got excited about it. This silly pink rose-bush that I tried so hard to keep alive and at times looked like I was succeeding. It felt cruel and unfair. It was cruel and unfair. (The metaphorical reference, of course.)

Plants and flowers are so majorly different and even though all of them need sun, water and air – their capacity for the elements are different. There is no blanket approach or a one size fits all. Yet we somehow expect humans to be different. We compete with one another, dislike qualities of ourselves we recognise in other people, feel wronged when it goes better with someone else, when you think they do not deserve it. Sometimes we bring other people down, or punish them, or remind them of all of their mistakes – because we want them to be considerate of us. We hide issues under the rug, avoid difficult conversations and strive for conformity and conform those who we get attached to. Our equilibrium gets disturbed constantly, by comparison.

We forget that we are in God’s garden and that each one of us have a different instruction list of how we are cared for. A cactus is just as gorgeous as a St. Joseph’s lily, yet they do not grow and bloom the same. Some trees take years to become extraordinary, while other flowers bloom and die annually. We are not the same – nor should we want to be.

You’d expect me to have a bigger aversion to pink roses after that. Quite the opposite. I still don’t like bought pink roses, but I feel that a wild pink rose-bush will have a place in my garden someday. Even though I horribly failed at keeping it alive, I have through those failings learned how to take care of it. When to water, when to sun, when to prune.

I am not a pink rose-bush, or a potted plant. Maybe I am somewhere in between a cactus or a protea. I might even be a crying willow – if it had thorns. We are all different plants and flowers. We all go though blooming and pruning. But we all go through it very differently.

My wish this Spring for everyone is to take a deep breath and be content where you are right now. Today might be your winter and you might not get to bloom right away. You will go through pruning and it will hurt a little. But you will bloom again, and the process will happen continuously throughout your life. Or when you are in mid-bloom right now – remember this, when your winter turns the corner.

But tomorrow belong to all of us. Turn your head towards the sun tomorrow, enjoy the water, take note of the creepy crawly’s and animals around you. Tomorrow the sun is out and Spring is here again – and that in itself is amazing.

Happy blooming friends!