Carpe Beatitudo

 Surprise blooms, in my estimation, are the best blooms, one of those little moments of life where karma reaches out, taps us on the shoulder, and says "Here, fella, let me bring you a little cheer!"  Not that I particularly need cheering up today, but in the hectic midst of life, I will never turn down a chance for a laugh or to enjoy a sunny moment when they appear.    

Pictured here is, of course, this year's appearance of  Blc Lily Marie Almas 'Sun Bulb' Orange, a Cattleya hybrid that I purchased from Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in years past.  Although I was so inattentive that I didn't see the flower spikes growing, she is right on time, or perhaps just a little early this year.  Last year, I blogged that she gifted me with two flowers on December 1st, and here she is, reincarnated, with 4 flowers this year on November 22nd.  I feel a bit guilty, maybe a little unworthy, that she struggles so mightily each year to gift me such sudden joy, but I will certainly take delight from whence it comes in this lost COVID year.

Lost year.  I suspect that is how history is going to record 2020, and many of my contemporaries will agree.  Our pets have prospered with all the extra home attention, and I suspect that the private vegetable and flower gardens of the world may have been a little better tended and a little less weedy this year, but, for most people, it has been a year of tension and apprehension, fear and fretting.  It has not, for ProfessorRoush, been quite so frightful on that front however.  I've worried for friends and family, but not for myself; there's too much work to be done and I'm far too fatalistic to worry about my own health.  I take precautions, but with my colleagues, I have worked right through this whole mess, missing the crowds of students in hallways, but relishing those few contacts we still have. Arbeit macht Glück, in my case.

'Lily Marie Almas', will be just another chapter in my upcoming memoir, How To Remain Happy and Hopeful During the Apocalypse.  I have a secret, you see, a secret to staying happy, a chart for remaining cheerful, a recipe for rose-colored repose.  It's just this; enjoy the little things and shed the little stings.  From little bits of happiness, we can, each of us, build a great big house of joy to keep the world at bay, bricks of bliss against the gloom.   Said another way, the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as Shakespeare put it, are no match for the simple practice of welcoming and engaging with every happy moment, not "carpe diem," but rather "carpe beatitudo." Seize happiness my friends, whenever you can.

Sun Bulbs and Christmas Cactuses

Once upon a time, there was an avid gardener who spent all his time among green things, indoors or out.  Ourdoors, there was a prairie paradise of native grasses and cultivated beds.  Indoors, over 20 thriving orchids and a dozen Zygocactus purified the air and lighted souls.  

 ProfessorRoush is a terrible indoor gardener these days.  My former indoor abundance has suffered from inattention and dwindled to a few plants.  First, there was the Great Winter Plant Massacre of about a decade ago, when we left home for a Christmas vacation and I turned off the thermostat by accident when I meant to turn it down a few degrees.  We came back a week later to a house hovering just at freezing.  No burst pipes, thankfully, just one cracked toilet and a bunch of dying orchids.  A pair of Zygocactus survived from a wilting, blackening multitude of formerly happy plants.

Subsequently, I never really revived my indoor plant passion and the current plants that share space with us likely suffer under the belief that I've abandoned them to a harsh, unforgiving desert, so infrequently do I water them.  Oh, for a time, I always put the Zygocactus outside during summer beneath the Redbud where they could experience fresh air and shade, but even out there, this gardener's attention wandered and they dwindled during drought periods and were subject to insect attacks.

I have been reborn as an indoor gardener this year, however, by the surprise appearance of the fabulous Cattleya pictured above.  I never noticed the spikes as they formed, and suddenly, on December 1st at 7:00 a.m. while I was feeding Bella, there were these two bright spots against the early morning sky.  Blooming for me for the first time, this struggling little guy was a purchase from Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Florida in 2014 and it has hung on despite the worse conditions I can muster.  Amazingly, I somehow retained the tag, which correctly identifies it as Cattleya hybrid Lily Marie Almas "Sun Bulb" orange.  What a gift from the sun gods she is, and fragrant too!  Obviously, I couldn't let her bloom alone, so I recently purchased a pair of Amaryllis bulbs and potted them up, preparing to brighten our New Year with their bounty. 

I have resolved to take better care of my indoor plants and improve my too-rare watering schedule; hopefully, however, refraining from overwatering.  I retain a few other plants at present, red, fuchsia, and white Zygocactus, another reasonably healthy orchid that isn't yet showing signs of bloom, and a struggling little orchid youngster that will likely soon give up and perish.  The white Zygocactus pictured here is new, a replacement for one lost outdoors this summer, and I'll soon repot it into something more suitable.  I will, I will, I will promise to keep a few healthy and enjoyable plants indoors to see me through this winter, but I will not, will not, mess with the thermostat or harbor another forest of orchids indoors.  Moderation, in gardening as in life, is the key.