Image Description: Bright, yellow flowers with green stems and leaves on a brown table with two brown chairs behind them. The flowers are leaning over the container in many directions.
Before COVID-19 hit, I used to keep yellow alstroemeria flowers on the dining room table. I did this regularly because they’re beautiful, but I also loved that when I brought them home and put them in a vase, they would typically last for about three weeks.
Around this time last year, I bought a bouquet. I kept them in their sleeve on a table for just a couple of hours, and… they wilted completely. Way more than the first photo above. They seemed destroyed. This was such a quick transformation that I assumed I needed to put them immediately in the compost.
“Well, I guess I’ll try,” I thought. I put these extremely wilted flowers in a vase with water and plant food. They looked like a sad cartoon. Then I ran an errand, and when I came back, they had perked right up. This too was completely surprising to me. And a couple of days later, they were even stronger and more vibrant.
This had me thinking…
Sometimes, nourishment is the work.
Nourishment is what we need. We can give this gift to ourselves in self-care. And community-care can be even more transformative, when with consent and empowerment, we are nourishing each other.
Sometimes, nourishment is the work. And when we choose it and help cultivate these nourishing conditions collectively, more is possible than we tend to think. Sometimes the seemingly impossible becomes possible.
Image Description: Bright, yellow flowers with green stems and leaves on a brown table with two brown chairs behind them. Now the flowers are tall and straight.
Smuggling Grace 