I've always loved that saying, "Bloom where you're planted". As an artist, I have longed to paint in the south of France and sketch on the western coast of Ireland. My life has been rooted instead where I live because of duty to others. They are my family and sometimes it's been the husband's job. For a long time it was raising the children. Now it's the season of the ailing elderly parents. Blooming where I'm planted means survival to this artist. Recently I found a pencil sketch on the inside of the address book that I carry in my purse. It's of a mop and bucket in a hospital corridor. I did it while waiting for my mother who was having tests. It was the only art I was going to do that day.
That's survival, but blooming that's a whole other thing. I loved the description of climbing the glass mountain in Julia Cameron's book WALKING IN THIS WORLD. If you would ask any of my nearest and dearest they would tell you how proud they are of me, the artist. They would tell you how supportive they are of my art. I smile at that, because they don't even nearly get it. People wander into my studio at 10:00AM and ask what's for supper. If I've closed the studio door, they will politely knock and ask if I knew there was standing water under the sink cabinet. Or maybe, not so politely, shouting that the dog is throwing up on the living room rug. No self respecting Muse can endure this daily battering. And, so blooming- wherever you are, isn't as easy as it sounds.
Right outside our sliding glass doors, where there should have been a beautiful view, was a wood pile. Obviously there had been a giant oak tree that had been cut down. My husband consolidated these logs to the existing wood pile behind a shed. Almost immediately green shoots popped up. I watched them all Summer wondering what they were. As I did the next two Summers. The third year, I had resolved that if they still didn't bloom, I would move them to another spot in the yard. And that's when it happened. They bloomed big and bright. They where Irises that someone had planted long ago and had somehow survived under a wood pile. It had taken three years of sunlight for them to generate these grapefruit size yellow flowers. Note to self: blooming does not come easily, but is possible with persistence. Even in a place "where the sun don't shine".
