December Bouquet

A very long year, and, surprisingly, a happily lengthy gardening year - a rare gift bestowed by 2020.

December's unexpected gift summer bouquet.

Flowers and stems cut and rescued this morning before the big snowstorm - hydrangea, geranium, rose, mint, chocolate mint, bundled together into a makeshift nosegay.  Why should the snow and winds claim my blooms?  They didn’t grow them or water them all year... And what a long year this has been; quirky that it was a long growing year too - whoever heard of flowers in December?  But, ok, if we have to take the bad, I get to harvest the good, too, right?  It’s only fair.

(Pre-bouquet shots were taken this past super-warm, 60 degree December Sunday - Jekyll to today’s frigid, 30 degree blizzardy December Wednesday.)

I suppose life itself tends to cycle in some good to balance out the sorrow.  It must.  Otherwise, we would all go and do desperate things instead of soldiering on.  (When I was 20, I had a heady debate with a boy I was crushing on about nihilism and this very concept, and came away with the logically weak, but for me necessary, belief in some sort of higher order order... discussion for another time.)

For me, in addition to this last bouquet, 2020 bestowed me job stability - in spite of a drastically changed schedule, at a firm that built a practice that can weather economic downturns.  So my finances are intact, better off proportionately, even, than in other years.  And another gift was this experiment with remote work - should serve well to open the door for more workplace flexibility.  And, finally, clarity - a swift kick in the pants to try to shape the second half of my working life more in my own image.

Just need to pull all of those together and act.