As Practice & Prelude
I’ve gone and ordered a potted white cyclamen. Two, to be exact, with ruffled edges, I requested, if they could possibly be found. I’m not normally one who goes for ruffly things, but in January, anything is possible. This idea of blooming cyclamen in winter, at this deepest part of winter, in particular, delightfully came to me a few years back when I saw one in my online friend, Catherine’s lovely home (I’ve not met her in person, but she’s the one responsible for our house landing in a magazine all those years ago). You already know how I feel about indoor blooms in winter, so I’m sure you’re not surprised by any of this.
It’s their beautiful defiance I’m sure, that’s behind it all. When just beyond the glass freezing temperatures hold hopes color-drained and frozen, here, in the comfortable warmth of home and hearth, blooms abound. I suppose it’s a way of pretending that you’ve got a lovely green-and-bloom-filled conservatory when all it really is, is a sunbathed table near a southeastern facing window.
It’s the doing of hopes and dreams. It’s for right now and for the some-day-when. I’m filling my sunny table with winter blooms in these Januarys, as practice and prelude for the glassed-in room filled with citrus trees and winter blooms in those Januarys, the ones in our some-day house. (It’s true, loves, in that house, I don’t even want a dishwasher, but an orangerie is as much a part of it as the windows and doors).
For me it’s a gentle reminder: I may not be able to live my fullest dream right now, but I can surely be living its prelude. May I never be afraid to work backward from my dream to discover what slip of it fits, so beautifully, so wonderfully in my life, right now.