The amaryllis given to me for free by our local florist was off to an inauspicious start – a fat green nub in a modest plastic pot.
Since I had not sought to possess it, I wouldn’t have been the worse for wear had it decided to die on me for lack of sun, or too much sun, for drought or flood, or a sensitivity to lead dust, or any of the nefarious ways I tend to inadvertently end the lives of my plants.
But slowly the stubborn nub produced two distinguishing features, which upon closer examination turned out to be leaves and a bulb. The bulb was as green as the leaves, and only identifiable by a streak of red (which Young Lady declared to be blood with a manufactured degree of horror) and the fact that it was even fatter than the leaves.
But slowly, surely, my amaryllis continued to thrive and grow at least five times its height and to boast five flowers to date, which are no ordinary blooms as all you amaryllis aficionados will attest. The blooms are almost as big as my face and blush quite as rosily as I do. (Yes, even at forty I have not outgrown my propensity for a social gaffe or the likelihood that it will be written all over my face).
But this amaryllis is my bright spot in a week of Petit Prince’s rampant stomach flu, where he cries if he is put down, but is just as likely to soil you from one end or the other if you pick him up. (He’s in my lap right now trying to feed me cracker crumbs as I type, which not only takes me twice as long to do, but increases the risk factor as more time passes since his last “incident”).
The amaryllis is my bright spot in a week of hopping across the wood skeleton floors that are waiting for their oak floorboard dressing. And it is my bright spot accompanying me as I spend the entire day cooped up at my desk, banished to my room by the winds of January, sawdust and cigarettes.
Just as we rapidly outgrew our apartment by deciding to have another child, so my amaryllis does not let a tiny mobile home deter her fecundity. She does not shy away from throwing up her skirts for all who pass by, the brazen hussy, and blushing profusely all the while. My amaryllis has made the best of a nebulous future, blooming where she is planted.
And so shall I.
* This post originally appeared in my former blog, Perfect Welcome, and may contain some modifications or discrepancies in the names or comments.
