A little miracle happened here this morning.
Today, Dan and I are preparing for our first official trip out into the world after sixteen months. I flipped on the light in the basement to hunt down an old carry-on bag for our flight, and there, in a dark recess under a table, in a crinkled old Trader Joe’s paper bag, I saw the strangest thing. You know that moment when your heart stops and you’re either seeing something terrifying or amazing but you can’t tell yet? Yea, that moment happened, and then I pulled out the crinkled old Trader Joe’s paper bag for a closer look.
About four years ago when I left my beloved job in New York, my coworkers gave me an amaryllis: an amazing flower that blooms once a year. It requires an imposed hibernation period, and so each year after occupying center stage in the sunroom to grow, I’d ease the bulb out of the pot and into a paper bag to hibernate. For the last few years it hasn’t bloomed–I don’t know why–I’ll leave that metaphor alone for now–and so the last time I tucked it in for hibernation, I forgot about it.
During the past sixteen months, while I struggled with the rest of the world through this dark time, apparently that little amaryllis struggled too. Yet, without water or light or fresh air, against every possible odd in a crinkled old Trader Joe’s paper bag in my basement, it grew. It pressed against those impossible paper walls, and blossomed in the dark.
So may it be for all of us.