Our friend just returned from a trip to Mexico.
“On this trip, amidst the warmth of the people I met, I was really and truly my authentic self,” she tells us. “I felt wonderful.”
I think about the moments when I am truly myself, not hovering on the outside, not commenting or critiquing from the inner balcony of my brain. And I wonder, what does it take to truly blossom?
Meanwhile, I notice the blossoms I most admire are often in inconvenient or perilous places. I adore the variegated iris that teeters on the curb outside of Ron’s house. It’s so near the street that a careless car door flung wide could destroy it. The sinuous threads of white within the deep purple speak a secret song to me.I applaud the wild daisies that boldly grow in the center of my lawn, unprotected from the ravages of the electric lawnmower. I admire the violet that pushes up between the cracks in a downtown sidewalk and the tulips that somehow made it to an otherwise weed and grass covered median in the center of a briskly trafficked boulevard. The undaunted chicory and black-eyed Susans that wave wildly from the sides of the freeway cheer me onward.
These flowers remind me that you can’t always choose the perfect location for a blossoming; you can’t always be safe, mulched and fenced in. A blossoming is a wild and perfect moment, growing out of instinct, intuitive and a letting go of fear.
What do my characters need to blossom? I’m now wondering. And I imagine that feeling of perfect integration and blooming as I sink into my writing to figure that out.
Where are your blossoming places?
