The Closet Tulip Lover
It took me nearly two hours to dig up the tulips.
Desperately I dug around the roots of my favorite maple tree,
all forty feet high and 65,000 roots of it.
However, today I had to bite my tongue to keep from cursing it.
When
they were first planted, the tulips
were probably a foot and a half away from the base of a tiny tree.
That was nearly 30 years ago!
They survived, and this year they flourished.
They bloomed a breathtaking red and a deep, plumb, black.
Three of each taunted me, and I would have them!
Or I would break every nail I had trying to reach them!
I
have never cared for tulips.
Their heavy smell in the florist shop
reminded me of every funeral I had ever attended.
Yet in the last three springs, hiding beneath bushes and tree roots,
they have brought about an extraordinary change in me.
From
the first spring after we moved into our new home,
I knew the garden was in trouble.
This was my dream home, a thirty year old house,
with split foyer, a bay window and a fifty-five foot deck.
Much of the house and yard had been neglected,
and the brambles and weeds housed several snakes
-- one of which pulled his seven foot shiny body
out of our swimming pool!
The
yard is blessed with maple, birch, and walnut trees
that shade the yard and reach for the heavens.
A huge weeping willow graces the back of our property,
and three sickly dogwoods were begging to be transformed.
It
has been a hard journey,
and I am not a young woman, nor are we wealthy.
But I do see miracles.
Some of the work is back breaking.
Southwest Virginia is beautiful,
all green and filled with flowering trees in the spring.
Virginia soil, however, is an unforgiving combination
of hardened clay and rocks from pebble to boulder size.
As a rule, this is not the soil that will give to you,
until after you have given to it.
Naturally, we have begun beds,
mulching and composting as we go.
Many prayers have stormed heavenward on my part;
for rain, for the rain to cease,
and for the money and the strength to persist,
so that I can make something beautiful before I die.
We have learned to save our newspapers and
to beg our neighbors for their leaves and grass clippings.
We are peculiar in our tenacity, and our neighbors have been
generous and encouraging in their assistance.
I
have learned patience,
and I have learned that in rocky, clayey soil,
it's the tortoise and not the hare that wins the race.
Persistence and leverage conquer the weeds and all the overgrown
bulbs, tubers and perennials just waiting to be discovered.
Just the other day, my daughter and I
rescued more daffodils than I have ever seen
– so crowded together that only a few would bloom.
We stopped counting at a hundred,
and we still have two more sections to go.
In
spite of my initial prejudice, remarkably,
my greatest joy are the tulips.
None of them are the typical bargain basement variety
that I had learned to dislike;
and the scent that once had me thinking of funerals,
after a long and unforgiving winter,
has become pure heaven to my nose.
So,
now you know.
I am a closet tulip lover,
and I will spend hours on my knees
digging around congested tree roots until my nails break,
just to save six bulbs -- three red and three black.
Besides, that's the perfect position to send
a prayer of thanksgiving to the One
Who has made this all possible.
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