Every year, I think about planting tulips and daffodil bulbs. Some years, I remember to buy the bulbs, but most years I don’t. And only twice have the bulbs I miraculously remembered to buy and plant sprouted flowers in the spring.
This year was one of the years when I remembered to buy bulbs. I bought them back in September while shopping at a large chain store on a rare solo trip to the big city. Buying bulbs on a whim is how I always buy bulbs. (Clearly, no true planning goes into the endeavor, or I’d have more to show for past efforts.)
What differentiated the purchase this year was the amount. Usually, I hedge my bets by only buying a few bulbs; that way, when I don’t plant them or they don’t grow, not much has been forfeited. But this year, I bought A LOT — scarlet tulips, orange and yellow petaled daffodils and even a package of deep purple crocuses, the kind I remember from childhood because they would break through the warm patches of soil while there were still piles of snow on the ground (a spring miracle).
I’ve never seen that variety growing here in western Dakota, which is a pretty good indication that we don’t have the right conditions to grow them. I bought them anyway, and while I can’t remember my exact frame of mind when I walked up to the checkout with all those packages, I do remember being fully aware of both my tendency to get too busy or too forgetful to plant bulbs, as well as the tendency of bulbs bought at big box stores to not be appropriate for our growing region and soil type.
The obvious allegory depicted by this story is hope triumphing over experience. Or, more accurately, that hope triumphs over all reason and sense. I’ve written different narratives with this theme over the years, and, of course, if I’m bothering to write about it, it is because there’s a satisfying conclusion to my foolishness. I have lots of wonderful stories where letting hope triumph over common sense has worked out, including the one where I moved to a random, remote town in western Dakota, fell in love with a cowboy and we ended up living happily ever after. Perhaps that’s why I keep buying bulbs at all.
It was a long fall. There were dozens of warm, sun-kissed afternoons during which I could have planted those bulbs in the three months after I bought them, but instead, they remained in their packaging, in the corner of the entryway, still in the shopping bag, after they’d immediately been pushed aside by a basket of laundry and then a pair of boots and then a too-small winter coat, completely forgotten.
I came across the bulbs while cleaning the entryway two weeks ago. I took them out and left them in the middle of the floor so I wouldn’t forget them again. I proceeded to step over them every day until yesterday.
Yesterday, for the first time since last spring, the frost didn’t fade at dawn but lingered long past mid-morning. Tomorrow, the snow in the forecast is expected to stick, and the cold dirt won’t just be cold, but frozen. In other words, the last possible moment before it was officially too late to plant anything at all. This is how I found myself hunched over, fingers red and stiff, trying to hastily plant almost 100 bulbs with a spoon (because apparently, I don’t own a trowel anymore) before the sun went down.
We will find out next spring if I get the happy ending of tulips and daffodils and crocuses, but the allegory remains, as does its message: Keep digging. Keep hoping that the beautiful things you plant will grow, even when it’s dark, even when it’s cold, even when you waited too long. Keep planting the seeds of beautiful things and keep remembering that the cold and dark can’t last forever, and because you planted, there’s now the possibility of flowers.
