Punctuality & Spring
On blooming where you are planted.
There is a gladness that envelopes humanity in the first few days of Spring, as if kindness itself were coming abloom in the cracks of crowded sidewalks. We observe Winter turning into Spring turning into Winter. This punctual ebb and flow provides solace.
“To be a Flower, is profound
Responsibility—”
I particularly enjoy Emily Dickinson’s poem because at the end she seems to realize that tests and challenges, when we do not run away from them, make us stronger. The flower is simultaneously fragile and powerful; it weathers conditions to ultimately lead to the blossoming of beauty.
In order to achieve its purpose, a flower staves off worms and disease, acquire water and nutrients, and stands up to the elements. A combination of the right conditions and the right time lead to full bloom.
There exists a human tendency to always be moving and growing. I have fallen prey to the same condition as well. I have been engulfed with being busy — which is not really being at all. I am using Spring as a reminder that growth comes in waves. The temporality echoes of nature’s ability to be renewable. It underscores, in a somewhat ironic fashion, that growth can be nonlinear. A familiar cycle can lead to surprising outcomes.
It takes rest and recuperation to bloom when one is meant to bloom. The flower is nature’s reminder that for complete creation one must accept destruction. No matter the current circumstance, if watered and cared for deeply, a full bloom is always around the corner.
We are then gently reminded that Spring - this insentient byproduct of the shape of our planet's orbit and the tilt of its axis - may just be Earth's existential superpower: a supreme affirmation of life itself.
“Bloom where you are planted🌻”
— Papa Sanghvi