Taking the Roses for Granted

When my husband and I moved into our current apartment, our “backyard” was basically a strip of dirt that lay between our stairs and the garage. Construction debris littered the dirt, and a discarded old stove sat at one end. I asked my landlady if much of this could be removed for a more aesthetically pleasing walkway to our back door, and she complied.

Once the junk was gone, I saw that this dirt was also home to a beleaguered rose bush.

A month later, the arrival of spring triggered a new desire in me, the perpetual tenant with homeowner envy: I wanted to try my hand at gardening. My husband set out to help me one day by weeding out and cutting back the unruly bits of green that were popping out of the ground where the debris had once been. In his enthusiasm, he nearly hacked the rose bush down to a stub. If I hadn’t come home when I did, he might have committed "plantslaughter."

Several weeks and a few doses of fertilizer later, I witnessed a small miracle: leaves, then buds, and then flowers—deeply crimson—coming forth from the rose bush. I began checking it every day like an obsessive mother, cooing over new blossoms and carefully pruning overgrowth. Encouraged, I bought some annuals to fill in the rest of the developing garden and we brought up some beach rocks from the Cape for accent. Later we dared to plant tomatoes, basil, and oregano for future meals.

Roots and crawly creatures soon replaced the bits of Styrofoam cups, cigarette butts, nails and wood that previously occupied the dirt. I was thrilled and soothed by this thing of beauty and wonder that we were cultivating outside our back door, and I spent a lot of time just staring at it, savoring. I also stopped to smell the roses more than once, grateful for their sweet perfume.

Five years later I’m more ambitious, having filled the garden with perennials, climbing vines and transplants from generous neighbors and my parents’ yard. I’ve scattered novelties amid the flowers, and a solar-powered globe that glows in multiple colors at night…eerily thrilling. I still peek out every morning to see what’s bloomed since sunrise, and I delight in the birds, butterflies, and bees that visit.

But the other day as I was watering my delightful little garden, I realized something kind of…sad. In my zeal to entertain and challenge myself with new and different flowers and plants, I’d forgotten to be amazed by the roses this year. And there were dozens of them now, showing off as I walked past them to groom a new acquisition.

I bent down to sniff the roses, clipped a small bunch, placed them on in a vase on my kitchen table and started thinking. What else was I forgetting to be amazed by anymore? Who and what was I taking for granted as I sought out new experiences, friends, and thrills? How quickly I move on, I realized, ever questing for the next new thing. What about the tried and true?

And so I looked around, paying attention and finding things to be amazed by all over again. The list included: rainbows on my walls from a crystal that was catching the sunlight; the maple and pine trees outside my windows, offering my eyes a green place to rest; my healthy body, showing up for me every day despite the many times I’d overtaxed it; my parents’ abiding love and concern for me, expressed in a card that sat next to the small vase of roses; and the way my husband does the dishes, folds my clothes from the laundry, cooks delicious meals, and tolerates my ever-changing moods.

It’s amazing, all the things that I should be amazed by each day. And I plan to remember that, especially when I pass the roses.