You Belong Among The Wildflowers
A patch of green catches the corner of my eye as I turn out of my neighborhood one spring morning. I turn my full attention to the right and notice a plot of unkempt stems shooting out of the grass.
How odd, I think to myself, taking in the juxtaposition of these unwieldy weeds next to a perfectly manicured lawn on the same property .
This same chain of events occurs every day for weeks—drive down the street, take a cursory glance at the wild vegetation contrasted against perfectly kept blades of grass, wonder why the home owners haven’t just taken a weed eater to that corner of the lawn, keep driving.
While I don’t dwell on the blight, I do notice. Who would boast this untamed bed of weeds?
*****
The first morning of swim lessons goes off without a hitch. I’ll admit, I was nervous when I signed my three-year-old up for these lessons after hearing the teacher could be “kind of intense”. For a high achiever, “intense” can either make you rise to the challenge or crumble under the weight of expectations. I didn’t know what the outcome would be in this situation, but on this first morning, so far, so good.
Then day two rolls around.
“Grab your ring”, the teacher instructs matter-of-factly.
My daughter obliges, but instead of putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles in order to find the ring, she merely reaches her hand in and fumbles around until she makes contact with the purple circle.
“You didn’t put your face in the water. Try again and get your whole face wet.”
She attempts again, this time putting her mouth and the tip of her nose in the water, but not her eyes.
This exchange goes on for a while—the teacher pushing her to put her whole face in, my three-year-old trying to follow directions but holding back out of fear.
I know the tears are falling before I see them. After her turn, she runs over to me and buries her head in my chest.
“I just can’t do it!”, she wails
I hug her and offer encouragement to keep trying. I remind her of her bravery and my belief in her.
By the end of the lessons she has managed to put her face in a couple of times, but I can already tell there will be a fight to come back tomorrow morning.
*****
I grunt in vexation1 as the embroidery thread inexplicably tangles once again. How does this keep happening??? I fume while I painstakingly work to extricate the tiny fibers from each other. I’ve been sitting in this same spot on my couch for an hour, pushing and pulling the needle in and out of the canvas, and all I have to show for my time are four measly straight stitched flowers. And those straight stitches aren’t even all that straight. If you erased the pattern, I’m not sure you’d even be able to tell they were flowers.
I pick up my phone and shoot a text to a friend, a fellow newbie embroiderer like myself, and vent my floss woes, wondering if it’s the thread or me. She assures me the type of thread does actually make a difference and relays her own stories of having to cut her losses (literally) and start from scratch. Hearing her struggles does little to subside my anger. I can still feel my shoulders rising ever closer to my ears and my eyebrows knit together tighter than a satin stitch.
My thoughts begin to spiral.
This is why I don’t like trying anything new. I just want to be good from the start and not waste all my time rethreading my needle or untangling floss. You can’t even tell how hard I’ve been working, I think to myself. The mess of fibers remains in my lap, mocking me in reply.
*****
In an attempt to create some sort of order in our schedule this summer, I decide to dedicate one day a week to “homeschooling”. I use this term loosely because all it really means is I pick a theme each week and compile a list of books for us to read and activities for us to complete related to the theme.
The first week, our theme is gardening. We check out several books from the library. We plant chia seeds in a terrarium. We plant a fuchsia Celosia in the backyard flower bed. We make dirt and worms for a snack. We learn about seeds and buds and blooms.
A few days after our lesson, I’m watering my Petunias and I call out to my daughter.
“Come look!”, I shout, pointing to small pinkish-green bulbs about to burst forth from the flower. “Buds!”
“Wow!”, she exclaims.
“Can I go back inside?”
Talk about short lived excitement.
Three weeks pass and we find ourselves on wet concrete, surrounded by trees and flowering bushes, making our way to a picnic table at our local waterpark. Determined not to let my feet burn but also committed to not getting yelled at by a teenage lifeguard, I am run-walking to the shade when I hear a delighted gasp, “MOMMY! LOOK!!”
I look back in obedience.
“Buds!”
Sure enough, lime green buds populate the bushes everywhere we look.
*****
I’m cleaning out my daughter’s backpack following school one Thursday afternoon. After salvaging what I can from what appears to be an untouched lunch, trashing the rest, and replacing the ice pack to the freezer, I move to her folder. Inside I find a laminated piece of pink paper reading, “All About My Mom”. This is the first time she’s ever filled out one of these questionnaires and I’m eager to read her responses to the prompts.
My mom’s name is Kelsey
My mom is 6 weeks years old
Her favorite food is soup
My mom is really good at her class where she puts colors through a thing
The last answer gives me pause. My class where I put colors through a thing? I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I ask.
She flounders a bit, unsure how to make her response any more obvious, until she runs to my desk and points to the clear plastic pouch with the red zipper. The one where my embroidery materials live.
The very same materials I see as a taunting mess, she sees as beautiful. Where I only measure how much more I have left to master, she appreciates the process of learning.
*****
I’m searching on our neighborhood Facebook page one afternoon when a picture pops up on the feed. Four-foot-high emerald green stems give way to vibrant sunflowers, marigolds, poppies, and blue, white, and pink flowers I can’t identify but admire. All contrasted against a quaint red windmill. The post reads:
This makes my heart happy every time I see it! I love our neighborhood. Thank you for all the beauty you’ve brought to our little gold nugget!
I meticulously inspect the picture trying to figure out how I’ve missed this hidden gem, when it hits me. The weeds.
All this time, I’ve driven right by this very same plot and never stopped long enough to consider what this patch of green may be—or what it could become.
The next day on my drive out of the neighborhood, I slow down. Sure enough, where I had just the day before seen a mess needing to be dealt with, I now notice bold wildflowers bringing color and joy to our corner of suburbia.
A pang of guilt stabs my chest. How dismissive I had been. Where else in my life have I rushed past the uncultivated disarray of green, only to stop and take notice once brighter colors burst forth? How often do I hurry through growth and only stop to appreciate proficiency?
More than a few instances come to mind.
*****
I make my way to the living room where Peppa Pig is playing to start the process of getting ready for day three of swim lessons. As I help my daughter into her swimsuit and pull her golden hair back into a ponytail, the resistance begins.
“I just don’t know how to swim! I don’t know how to do it yet, I don’t want to go.”, she protests.
“Honey, of course you don’t know how to do it yet. That’s why you take lessons—to learn.”, I console.
“But everyone else already knows how!”, she retorts
“No they don’t, they’re learning, too. Everyone has to start somewhere.”
In that moment, images of buds, wildflowers, and embroidery hoops bloom in my mind.
“Remember when we learned about seeds and buds and flowers?”
“Yes”, she sniffles.
“Do flowers start as flowers or do they start as seeds?”
“Seeds”, she answers tentatively.
“That’s right. Flowers don’t start off the way we see them, they start off small and underground. But with dirt and water and sunlight, they start to bud, and then they flower. The same goes for us. We don’t start off knowing how to do things, we need bravery and encouragement and practice and eventually we learn.”
She considers this for a moment. I go on.
“When you’re in the pool today, I want you to tell yourself ‘I am a flower’ as a reminder that you’re learning and growing.”
She gasps and points to her swimsuit.
“Just like I have flowers on my swimsuit!”
I hadn’t even noticed when I grabbed the suit from the towel rack in the bathroom where all her swimsuits hang to dry.
“That’s right, you do!”, I smile.
Ten minutes later we step through the gate leading to her swim teacher’s backyard. We round the corner and are immediately greeted with the sight of little white flowers dotting the top of the water, like pennies from heaven just for us.
“Look!”, I point out. “Look at those flowers too when you need a reminder that you are a flower.”
The lessons don’t go perfectly. She still struggles to place her entire face into the water and cries when the teacher has her submerge, but I see the resolve on her face every time she tries. I see her working to be brave.
Her bravery encourages me. If she can push through being a beginner, so can I. If I want her to find beauty in the green areas of her own life, I need to find them in my own. If I tell her she is a flower, then I must tell myself the same truth.
We are flowers.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Green."
Okay, more like let out a string of expletives under my breath in vexation
This was such a beautiful story and I love how the lesson of waiting to see the harvest of what you’ve sown earlier connected throughout these different parts of your life. I definitely needed to hear that and allow myself to “be a flower” in my own life and motherhood.
And how amazing that your daughter mentioned your embroidery in her questionnaire 🩷
If I tell her she is a flower, then I must tell myself the same truth... this was such a beautiful metaphor to share with your daughter. Loved the honesty of it