Blooming reminder

I want a break from the critical. Seriously. I want to like something…most things. Hell I want to love something…a lot of things. The last few weeks (maybe months) I’ve been eating at restaurants that are alright…(Nido excluded). Meals that I can compliment on the one hand but must qualify on the other. Too expensive, too pretentious, too trendy, too something…or, frankly, just not enough of anything.

And maybe it is me.

Maybe I’m too damn picky. Maybe I’m seeking perfection without realizing it. 

What the hell does perfection taste, sound, look, feel like anyway?

But I’m not. Looking for perfection. I’m just looking for a smattering of moments where the world smiles at me and I am summoned and surrounded by Blue. It has happened before. I have been downright delighted by things…little things…unexpected things.

My neighbor (now friend) gave me an orchid as a housewarming gift almost two years ago. It was my first and had these big beautiful purple blooms that stayed big and beautiful for weeks…hell, for months. When they finally started to wither and fall off I remember so much sadness. Still, the barren green stalks with gangly roots escaping the narrow brown pot remained green and so I continued to water it. It is one of many plants I have in my house so it fell into rotation with the others. 

Then, a few months ago, well over a year later, I noticed small green buds on the ends of my slender green stalks. I began to count them. Five. Eight. Thirteen. 

I was filled with both a delivered and a pregnant joy. Delivered, because my plant wasn’t just stalks, it had renewed itself, it was going to bloom again. Pregnant joy because while the anticipation of the coming beauty was delicious, the blooms are…well…orchids. 

Have you ever really looked at an orchid? They are beautiful; so perfect in their beauty that often I assume a living thriving plant is fake because the flowers are too flawless. 

My orchid is in bloom now. Thirteen perfect blossoms that greet me each day. And just sitting next to it makes me smile. Looking at it. Marveling at how plain skinny stalks can become this delicate spectacle.

I mention the orchids because for all of my opinions and preferences, I do not require spectacle- I don’t demand fancy. Sitting on the roof of my apartment I am still awed by the simplicity of an Oakland sunset burning the sky orange and pink, or the sliver of crescent moon that rose early tonight (and I gazed at while taking out the trash). 

I was about to type a lie. I was about to say that lately I haven’t been stuck by the amazing (orchids and crescent moon aside)…but then I think of last weekend’s mediation retreat in the Santa Cruz hills, walking through a path of fallen leaves (so soundlessly yielding I wondered if I could fall from a great height with little harm), redwoods crowding the sky, a coyote sitting quietly at the edge of the clearing despite our presence. I was going to say I haven’t been impressed or inspired lately. But that isn’t true. I simply haven’t been inspired in the ways that I am looking to be inspired. 

I haven’t eaten anything so sublime I am forced to drag friends to have the same experience. I haven’t read anything that I just can’t put down. I am mistaking the absence of the perfect bite or an impeccable page for…absence. 

And beauty and splendor and majesty are not absent in my world, I simply needed a reminder. I needed to write to remember the enchantment I encounter all the time. 

I think I’ll go gaze at my orchid…she has five new buds; maybe in her shadow I won’t forget.