Of Bloom & Gloom: A Field Guide to Delicate Devastation

You need rain to make your garden grow, but I remember the year I grew things just to watch them die. The soft mourning of aborted plans, the quiet hum of orphaned love. There’s a peculiar comfort in tending to things even when you know they weren’t meant to last. In truth, everything is ephemeral—we just can’t accept it. I have a hard time letting go as one season surrenders to the next. I handpick bouquets of the finest origin, knowing they will never be unsullied by time. But I leave the magnolias, for they are too beautiful to claim. Instead, I walk past them in ritual and reverence, holding on until their gossamer-fine petals give way to abscission, returning to the Earth in gentle sighs of relief. It’s over now. Did it ever happen at all? Even so, don't make plans to press the flowers into a weepy journal, take pictures with your eyes instead.

I harvest melancholy, collecting my griefs like fallen apples—bruised and soft with rot. I examine them carefully and tenderly, if only to remind myself they still serve a purpose. I wouldn’t give them to strangers, and they wouldn’t shine in rows of a produce aisle, ripe for the picking, but the worm still eats them, enriching the soil and readying it to grow into something new.

I’ll always hold reverence for the soft bloom of spring. I’ll forever cherish the decay of late summer and early fall.

I buried myself inside a little hollow that year, lighting a fire and dancing naked in the ashes around the fallen oak tree. I touched my lips to the root, knowing nothing could grow, but still, it felt good to touch the core before the Earth reclaimed it.

I hold the sun in my arms now. But I’ll never forget how I needed the rain.