It Happened

Well, it’s finally happened.  The amaryllis that I kept from last year, put into hibernation, and got back out last fall has finally bloomed.  It’s about two months late, but I guess better late than never.

This is the one that, when it came out of the closet, had just a touch of green at the end of the bulb.  I knew it was a good bulb.  We put it in the window sill, watered it, and cared for it along with a couple other bulbs.  But while the other bulbs were blooming and growing leaves, this one just sat there.  Still green at the end, it did nothing for the longest time.

Finally, after the other bulbs had bloomed and were on their way downhill, the barest of change was happening in this one.  A flowering shoot peeked out of the top of the bulb and grew skyward.  Now that bulb has bloomed in all its glory.

I haven’t a clue why this bulb chose to bide its time and take its own dear sweet time to get to this point.  The other bulbs are long into leaf-growing mode and the flowering shoot has been cut away.  This bulb is a delight and is in and among the daffodils and tulips in announcing the coming arrival of spring.

Of course, there’s a lesson here.  When was the last time you fretted and worried over when an event would take place, the timing of which you couldn’t have changed for all the tea in China?  How often do we expend time and energy trying to move that boulder that just won’t budge?  When will we learn that some things work in their own good time, and not a moment sooner or later?

I couldn’t have changed the timing of the blooming of this amaryllis if my life depended on it.  I couldn’t reach inside the bulb and pull the flowering shoot out by hand.  I was already giving it the best environment it needed to bloom.  It just, for whatever reason, had its own timetable and nothing I could say or do would change that.

Next time you become frustrated because something is happening (or not) that you want to happen at a different time, think of my amaryllis.  It won’t make your “happening” come when you want it to come, but it may just settle you down and enable you to think more clearly, be less stressed, and “stop and smell the roses.”