The Orchid Keepers...

I made a mad dash out of California, like it was on fire, and it so often is...

We pulled away from the empty house at three pm on a Friday, just 24 hours after my daughter graduated high school.

I left in a panic, as if that non existent fire was chasing me from the cool, sparkling coast, deep into the smoldering desert of Nevada.  My hands ached that night from the tight grip I kept on the wheel, believing my strangle hold could make the SUV move faster or straighter.  

And we were all over tired from months of preparation and anticipation, desperate to move forward and to change our splintered life... 

The first night was hard, but not as hard as the ones that followed.  

I'd wanted to make the trip across country a sort of vacation, but running away doesn't make for a very good vacation, I was about to learn.

Each day we'd get out of the car, release some energy on something.  We'd hike, walk and not talk, because talk led to tiny quarrels that didn't dissipate.  

We'd eat, but not dine.  We'd all developed some kind of vehicular anorexia that kept us from consuming the multitude of packaged snacks stowed inside the car.

We'd encourage the dog to run, but she'd not stray far from our sides, often choosing to wind herself around us, tangle us up in her leash.   She acted confused, which likely she was, we all were.  

We were leaving California, the only home my children knew, to move 3,000 miles away to our next home, our future, a place far away from the life we loved which had disappointed us.  

We three were ready to move on, but not because we wanted to, more like because we needed to and need is the mother of invention, not the mother of excitement, after all.   

So we drove long days, listening to music, daydreaming of our future and the possibilities it held as we mentally sifted the good past from the bad past, tossing the painful, rotten parts out the window, letting them litter the miles behind us, trying to lighten the load we carried across the country.  

As we drove, she never let it go.  She held it on her knees, clutched between her two hands, like a newborn baby.

She won it months earlier at an author's festival.  It held special meaning to her.  

We debated weather or not to give it away.  We loved it so much and we loved many people we'd be moving away from with the same tenderness but she could not bare to let it go.  I suspect it represented a piece of my sister and step-mother that she simply needed to hold on to.  

Orchids are fragile.  They don't like to be moved but there was little point in mentioning that to her.  It was a fact she'd be well aware of I'm sure and yet it would not be enough of a reason for her to part with it.  It was much more then a plant to her.

A month after we arrived, every precious, perfect petal fell off of her orchid.  

For a year it's remained alive but dormant.

I re-potted it, relocated it, refused to allow myself to dump it in the trash, sad as it's condition has appeared to be.

And today, I see the blooms or at least the potential of them...

Just barely there, but there non the less

"Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains... " William Penn 

We moved though many mountains, valleys, deserts, across prairies, past lakes, over rivers, into cities and small towns, till we reached our new home.  

Spent and trembling each night, I'd sneak our pet tortoise and snake into a hotel room, past an unsuspecting desk clerk.  I'd set up their light installations, walk the dog and scrounge up some semblance of a healthy dinner for my kids, which would require serious cajoling to get them to eat.  

We'd sleep restlessly, despite our deep fatigue, reluctantly repacking the car with critters and crap each morning for six long days till we reached our destination.  

Though we are here and have been for one full year, we haven't quite made it to our destination just yet, but we're closer, closer then ever...

We are here.
We live here now.
And the Orchid is starting to bloom.