The Flower

The Flower

I watched a flower open today.

Yes. That’s how this starts.

Just a flower.

I sat for two hours, on the grass in the garden, and watched a flower open, saw those petals unfold, saw it turn; then, as the sun made its course across the morning sky, I saw it moving.

Time is relative, when we use perception. It didn’t feel like two hours. It felt like I was the flower, waking to this new day, and it was as if I awoke and stretched and turned to look at the sun. A matter of seconds, that action for us. For a flower, it takes minutes, or even hours. But it’s all the same. The flower awoke, then stretched, then turned to take those rays of light and warmth and energy on its face.

Lord…I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to pick a flower again. Not, at least, like before, with nary a thought for what I am really doing.

I’d rather not think about it too much.

So, after those two hours I left the flower to its life with the breeze and the visiting bees and went back into the cottage. It’s a small place, a Canadian-style log cabin built in 1944, during the Second World War, carefully and resolutely constructed and put together log by log at a time when much of Europe was being taken apart stone by bloody stone, a place of golden polished wood warmth built by people who believed in the future with far greater strength of spirit than many of us have today.

I boiled some water on the stove and then alternately gazed out through the window at the flower, living its life there in the garden, and back at the room around me, trying not to think too much of what I had planned for today. For today, I was supposed to do some pretty heavy chores, so I’d risen early, helped in a way to wakefulness by a squirrel that habitually dropped from a branch onto the roof directly above my bedroom and somehow created more noise with its daybreak squirrelaerobic exercises than a such a small and lightweight animal has any right to make, and as there was no way I could get back to sleep, I’d dressed warm against the chill and gone outside, where for no reason I can fathom I decided to sit and watch the flower.

My fiftieth birthday has come and gone… Why did it take me over fifty years of life to sit for long enough to watch a flower awake?

Perhaps some things don’t really need a reason. It seems a shame, in fact, that we mostly do things only because there is a reason.

The flower had turned a fraction more.

A flower’s day might seem routine but it never is, really: every day is different and special.

For everything. Even flowers.

Just a flower. The flower had turned a fraction more.

Beautifully written. Well done.

Missed you Mike..and your beautiful writing.
Would be a glorious thing for all to view the world, as a flower.
AD

Hi to Buck Division and AD and thank you both for your kind comments. It took a stupidly long time to write what is really such a short story so I'm very glad you enjoyed it.

Good to hear from you again, AD. I read your Late Spring entry and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I love the shift in awareness that happens to me as I read your stories. I am not a gifted writer like you are, so I do not know if I can explain well. But its like, as I read your words, someone comes along and scoops out all of the noise and distractions and I can see new things. Its like I am sitting right there and viewing the world as you do. And the thing that I love the most is that is sticks even after I stop reading. And I view the world differently.

You leave people better than they were when you found them.

Thank you so much for sharing your words and your gift.

reply to post by idunno12

Thank you so much for your comments. I appreciate them more than I can really express.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Mike

reply to post by JustMike


Wow...that was beautiful and amazing. I don't know that I ever have sat still long enough to watch a flower open and greet the day, perhaps when I was a child. Yes, as a child I paid a bit more attention and lingered a little longer over my sunny summer days. They seemed to be endless and lasted much longer than they do now. Life goes by now in quick minutes, the days going by faster and faster the older I get. How to slow time down? Is it to sit and watch a flower?

reply to post by queenofsheba

Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it.

How to slow time down? Oh, if we knew that, what we could do! But seriously, one thing I enjoy is trying to recall my dreams, because in them, time often seems to vary. On occasion dreams get close to "eternity", that seeming non-place where time does not exist: in one of its forms, eternity can be taken to mean that which is atemporal.

I like that concept because of its wonderful clash with our perception of the physical realm: if there is no time, then how can anything move, or even exist? We are so ingrained with the concepts of time and space being interconnected that it is hard to separate them in any way. But atemporality doesn't really have to mean that time doesn't exist. Rather, it's more of the concept of an endless now.

And in some ways, that is what we have: we assume the future and know of the past, but the past is out of our physical reach and most of the future is something we will not experience. All we have, really, is now. The problem is that we don't perceive it in everyday life. We see time passing.

But does it really do that anyway?

I suppose we could say that there is a "time capsule" and we are within it. We are encapsulated within that thing called "now". Yet here, in this physical realm with its capsule of now-time around it, the only way I know of to approach that atemporal state and be fully aware of "now" is through meditation. Yes, time "passes", but while we meditate it is an irrelevance. Only now exists and when we focus on it, we see so much.

This doesn't mean we have to sit motionless for hours and "contemplate our navels" as the rather ignorant saying goes; I am happy to meditate while riding a tram to work, for example. I am there, but not there. I am in "now" and it's a good place to be.

So, I suppose it is within our minds -- the greatest gift we have besides life itself -- that time ceases to be the millstone that wears us down in the physical world. And as you know, the physical is not forever anyway, but if we spend a bit more time within our minds and contemplate the now that we have, then it is (shall we say) time well spent.

Best regards,

Mike

PS: it's well after 1 am as I write this, so I hope it makes a modicum of sense.

reply to post by JustMike


A beautiful, insightful piece. Very touching and thought-provoking. Well done.

Mike as usual, a beautiful story. I enjoyed it, thank you sharing.

Real beauty is the one thing that always brings tears to my eyes. Thank you. I can't believe that piece you wrote got so few stars. If I could, I'd give you ALL of mine. (My husband grew up in Prague. He adds nazdar.

a reply to: ClownFish
My belated thanks for your comments, ClownFish. My little stories here don't usually get many stars, but that's okay. It's not why I write them. I'm happy enough to know that they can have an effect on some who read them, stars or no stars.

If you'd like to see what I've been writing lately, please feel free to visit the thread about my new book that is linked in my signature.

And for your husband, a little message:
"Jste z Prahy? No člověče, je to paráda! Praha je opravdu nádherná a jsem tak rad, že tady bydlím."

(To keep within our T&Cs about communicating in English, here's a free translation of what I wrote:
"You're from Prague? Hey, that's great, man! Prague is really gorgeous and I'm so glad that I live here.")

That was beautiful and heartfelt!