To Full-Bloom

“The bush is ablaze with a smokeless fire,” she said upon returning from a run.

Indeed.

Walking along the corridors of cut corn stalks in the hinterland of the farm, the sugar bushes arrayed in the kind of finery fit for halls of fame, the dogs, the girls, and I are bewitched by their raving colour. Ambers and umbers, burnt reds and polished golds, the tumble of it all looks like the contents of a giant jewel box lined with velvet of sky-blue.

The threat of frost has had me shrouding the dahlias that are outside my window in hopes of extending their grandeur. I don’t have a green thumb, but I can carry water to dry gardens and throw old table cloths over buds and blooms that in their grandeur border on ostentatiousness.

In another window, at another home, orchids line the sill on the inside. Their showy blooms can be seen from the outside in as you walk past the window to the door. They are Mom’s pride and joy, and she is meticulous about the number of ice cubes she adds to their soil, where they sit to get the light best suited to their health, and the best vantage point for her viewing pleasure.

I was taking my turn to stay with her this past summer, and I always feel up close to something sacred when I’m privy to her space. One morning after her routine of getting herself ready for the day, she walked over to the windowsill by her chair with her quick though somewhat precarious gait. With a weathered hand, she took a hold of one of the orchid pots, pulled it out of the corner from where it was sitting, and shifted it towards the front of the sill.

“This one has buds, and it needs room to bloom,” she said, half to herself, half to me.

Out of the mouths of elders…

It needs room to bloom. These are words of wisdom. A plant needs space to blossom and bloom, and people are hardly that different. We need a kind of spaciousness to open up and unfold. How often do we feel crowded into a corner with no space to bloom? How often might we hem people in (one hopes, inadvertently) leaving them no room to unfurl?

There was a movie that was popular years ago called “Dirty Dancing”. A young, privileged woman at a family camp becomes enamoured with the older, rough-around-the-edges employee at the camp after seeing him dance at a house party. These dances were a big part of the movie with a dance competition at summer’s end. She convinces him to teach her how to dance. He does. They become involved, much to the displeasure of her parents. They forbid her to compete as his dance partner in the final competition. At the competition, she is tucked into a corner sitting with her family. As the evening unfolds, suddenly he comes through the back door, strides over to where she is sitting, takes her hand and pulls her to the front onto the stage to perform their dance routine, parental permission or not.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” he says curtly.

This is by no means an endorsement of the movie, but the scene is not unlike Mom pulling her orchid out from the corner to give it room to bloom. When an animal is cornered, it becomes unpredictable and darts about looking for a way out. I think we as people feel similar when we’re cornered. We become wary and dart about looking for a way out. It takes conscious thoughtfulness and autonomous choice for one to remain calm and move to a place of space. Feeling cornered diminishes and deflates a life.

Are we uneasy, suspicious, of a life lived with flourish? A life lived with the flamboyance of a saucy-headed dahlia or the more sedate orchid? A life of airy abandon? Or can we be the weathered hand that tugs the life from a corner to enable the spaciousness for a full bloom? Or like the young, firm hand of Patrick Swayze’s character flying in the face of accepted convention in an act of deviance to showcase someone’s hard work and achievement?

Analogies work to a certain point. There may be a time when a corner provides shelter and support for a heavy-headed plant or person. Being nudged out of the corner at a time like that may cause plant or person to droop and wilt. That, of course, is different than being cornered. Exercising kindness and respect at a time like that is more enlarging in my experience than feeling put on the spot.

However, the picture of my mother pulling that pot out of the corner to give it space to bloom stays with me as a way to bolster the blooming of a life. Enabling in the most positive of sense of the word. Helping to spur on the audaciousness of full-bloom.

The daylight hours are getting shorter as the sun rises and sets further south on the horizons. That slanted light enriches the hues in the jewel box of autumn. And we are here, right here, to see and attend to it all. Being the ones who pull Baby from the corner to shine.