Late Bloomers
by Rosalind Foley on 04/23/14
A while back some friends and I went to visit a neighbor who had moved to Arkansas. At her house I dug up some iris bulbs that I planted in my back yard on my return home. Despite faithful weeding and the application of bone meal, nothing much ever came of the effort. Every year the bulbs produced healthy-looking spikey green leaves, but never more than a flower or two.
This Spring, though, oh my! I walked out one morning to find nine yellow bearded irises blooming at once. In a visual 'Alleluia', new blossoms unfolded every day for a week.
The freezes in January must have made it happen.
Not surprisingly, I see a writing parallel. The cursed 'writer's block' may not be so bad after all. Maybe we need those fallow times when the ideas won't come and words seem limp, inadequate or meaningless. Maybe the muse needs to be nourished in hiding, seasoned by life till it is ready to burst again with the energy that is creativity.
