My Own Little Garden of Happiness
“Flowers are the most beautiful when they are just about to die.”
I think a lot of us have heard this saying before. I’ve seen people using it as an analogy for reflecting upon their lives when they are in a difficult situation, or when somebody is succumbing to an illness. It’s a phrase that perfectly encapsulates the act of washing away one’s selfishness, and giving one last love-letter to life before the moment of death. It never occurred to me that this saying refers to an actual phenomenon that happens with plants and flowers: they bloom right before their cycle of life ends. It might sound obvious to some, but in my 20 years of life, I had never bothered to study anything about gardening, or plants, nor did I ever try to have a garden of my own, so of course, all this was new to me. Until this winter, that is.
For the past year, I have thought of sunflowers as very intriguing, beautiful plants. Once one germinates, the little flower starts following the sun, and grows toward its direction, as if it were a duckling looking for its mama. Once it blooms, it becomes a beautiful flower the color of the shining sun itself, but sadly, it dies shortly after, leaving behind hundreds of little seeds and creating another cycle of life. This cycle repeats itself roughly every two to four months, and slows down in winter due to the harsh weather conditions that make it tough for the seedlings to absorb sunlight and nutrients from the cold soil, and that is in the odd case that they manage to not freeze to death in the first place.
With none of this prior knowledge, I finally bit the bullet and spent a whopping $10 worth of sunflower seeds and pottery to grow an indoor garden, that so far consist of a few cacti that are growing at a snail’s pace, and a surprising number of strong-willed sunflowers that grew in the most unfavorable of conditions. At first, I believed that only one seedling had survived the weather, since it was the only thing I saw rising from the brown soil for a couple of days, and the next thing I know, two, three, four, five, six, seven… Eight! Eight brave sunflower seedlings survived the winter. It made me so happy to see that my original sunflower now had such a large family. While the very first one had the name of Sunflowmon (extremely creative, I know) since I thought it would be the only one to grow, now I had to come up with an additional seven names for the other little ones. I read somewhere that Sunflowers are a symbol of loyalty and longevity since they can retain their beauty and form in the face of environmental conditions that would leave other flowers wilted. Seeing all these seedlings pop from the ground like that, seeing them thrive against all odds, man, it just inspires me. I want to be like my little sunflowers. I want to be a virtuous man that perseveres through the worst of conditions, I want to rise above everyone else, just like my sunflowers rose from a small seed and broke through the ground to display their majestic leaves and stems. I want to get better.
As a first-time dad to a pack of sunflowers, I did what a good parent would do, and started playing music for them, since I had also read online that plants grow healthier when they listen to music. Jazz supposedly has sound frequencies that mirror those found in nature, which makes the roots grow larger towards the sound, and in turn, creates much larger plants. Sounds like something ridiculous, and it might just be, but I’m not taking any chances, I’m growing these flowers so that they are large and beautiful, and once they are old enough, I want to present them as a gift for my girlfriend, my big sunflower. That’s not the only fun-fact-that-might-just- be-a-load-of-BS that I read online, oh no! I also learned that plants react to the things you say to them, and that they grow healthier and prettier when you shower them with kindness and compliments. This seemed super sweet to me, and while at the beginning I was extremely shy to speak to my little seedlings, they are now the first thing that I greet once I get home! I tell them all sorts of things: about the music they listen to, I ask them how they are liking the music, I let them know about the weather, and I tell them to hold on just for a little longer, since winter will soon be over. I think they are listening to me, and that they are being strong for me. I think that I am raising them well, but I also think about how sad it’ll be to watch them grow to their certain death… and even if that’s when I’ll be able to reap the love and care that I put into them, it makes me a little sad to think that their beauty will only remain for a couple of days, before they wither, and give their final love-letter to the world in the form of new life. It’s making me tear up to think about this! And I haven’t been with these flowers for that long: there’s still a month until spring, and I just planted them this winter, after all. But it feels as if these little beings have changed something in me, like they are making me more emotional.
Now that I think of it, it just makes sense that I planted sunflowers in the coldest and darkest season of the year. I come from a country with a very hot climate, usually around the 104 degrees in Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees in Celsius, since in my country we use the later. I’m used to the heat and drought throughout the whole year, not to these freezing temperatures and cloudy skies. The sky I’m used to is so bright and blue, and that’s the sky that I love so much, and luckily, the sky here looks like that, too, but not at this time of the year. This time of the year is so dark and gloomy… it feels as if the days are shorter and the sun is out less, the wind, chilling, howls like a pack of hungry wolves every night, and it knocks in my bedroom window so viciously that it feels like the sky is tumbling. The stormy black clouds cover the face of the sun at the times where it’s meant to be displaying all its majesty, they darken our days and block the heat from entering the atmosphere. They seek to block life from flourishing.
I planted these sunflowers to be a shining star of my own during a time where I cannot see the real sun. I want to see the colors of the sky and nature, of forests and rivers, of yellow, and green, and brown, whenever the sunflowers bloom. I want them to absorb the energy of the sun and share it with me, so that I can cheer up a little, so that I can be happier during the worst times of the year. I want them to paint over the gray filter that life is in right now, I want them to paint it with crayons, and markers, and pencils, and ink. I want them to make a beautiful mess of colors out of the blank slate that winter means to me.
Thus, the idea of parting ways with my brave little sunflowers is hard to accept, and that’s why I want them to bring happiness to this world for as long as they can. And speak of that, I was very scared that my little ones would not survive the freeze that we had a couple of weeks ago. My bedroom window, frozen, could not stop the sub-zero temperatures from ice and snow entering my room. It proved too hostile, and while the dull white color of the snow slowly but surely absorbed the life of everything that was once green and pure, I only worried about the young seedlings that would surely not be able to sustain the terrible conditions. With no electricity, I could not provide any heat to my flowers for four days, which felt agonizing to me, since it felt as if I’d just begun to take good care of them. They appeared weaker each of those day, to the point where I was unsure if watering them was even worth it, since they would likely die on me anyway. I did not mind starting over, especially since it would become a thousand times easier to grow flowers after winter, but to me it just felt disappointing, as it I had just failed my flowers as a caregiver. I did not want that, I expected better of myself. I know I cannot control the weather, or electricity, or a lot of things for that matter, I know that. I know that there are a lot of factors out my reach, and no one expected the state to freeze and affect our lives that bad. But then I saw something that took me off guard: more and more seedlings were sprouting, and they were growing at an abnormally high speed. The first day I realized that more seedlings were growing, they were nearly a centimeter tall, but by the day that I recovered power and could provide more warmth to my flowers, they grew to nearly six centimeters tall! It was as if they were fighting back, as if it were their way of saying that their life would persevere through odds that were stacked against them. Man, that inspired me. I want to be like my little sunflowers, and not give up on myself even if everyone around me has given up. I have to grow and mature and learn, and I have to love myself so that words will not knock me down ever again.
To me, watching these tiny plants grow made me not mind the loss of power, or having to sleep with three blankets, or having to be stuck at home with no contact to the outside world. I did not mind anything at all, I only felt excitement. It was then that I realized that in a way, the life cycle of a flower is too similar to that of a human being. We are all born in a world that is intimidating and is grander than us, a world that is unforgiving, that nowadays is seemingly on the verge of collapsing, but like a tiny being that manages to survive a winter storm, the strongest of our kind brute force their way into life despite harsh circumstances – we find water in the desert, refuge from the downpour, shadow in the burning sun, and light in the blackness of the night. Some of us perish at our peaks, and some of us wait just a little longer before fully withering away, with the only things that we leave behind are the love and joy that we were able to spread during our short lives. And I think that is beautiful. To live for the sake of living, for the sake of seeing the sunshine through the blinds one more time, or for having another chance at life.
Growing flowers had transcended gardening as a hobby, and became something of my own: something that I just want to do, something that just feels right to me. I want to preserve them for their beauty that brings me so much joy, and the colors that paint over the sky, land, and walls.
As such, as soon as the roads cleared up, my mind was set: I want to make more life happen around me. I want flowers, trees, veggies, fruits, and I want those hot pink flamingo statues that apparently are popular garden decorations. Thus, I went to my local garden center to purchase lots and lots of seeds. Lavender, pumpkin, yellow squash, watermelon, cucumber, tomatoes, roses, and of course, more sunflowers. I want to plant many greens all over my garden and see a colorful scenery whenever I enter my house, and I want to bid them farewell on my way out. I want the dull red bricks from my house to stand out among the dull red brick houses in my neighborhood, with a flourishing jungle of colors front to back!
I imagine a future where the greenery of multiple plants and flowers add color to walls painted with different shades of gray and white. Where their leaves tangle around pots and windows, and dance as they are being watered, and listen to the sweetest hip hop and jazz that I can think of. On the same note, maybe it is okay for life to lose its color during the winter, so long as I find a way to paint the scenery myself with the colors of nature, and the next time that the sun hides behind grey clouds, it will be okay, because I will have anywhere from eight to twenty little brave sunflowers shining their brightest on my bedroom window, right besides my bed and my plushies. I imagine a future that will come in a few weeks, where my little sunflowers bloom and I can finally witness the birth of life that I nourished and made possible with love, care, and patience.
Growing flowers has made me more connected to nature despite living a suburban lifestyle, where I see nothing but gray concrete making the shape of gas stations and stores, and black pavement leading me to nowhere in particular. I’m creating new and refreshing life that’ll spread the aromas of home and the feelings of joy – flowers that’ll grow ever taller to reach for the sun! They won’t melt or burn; they’ll become a star of their own.