This is what they looked like when I planted them in the fall. I have a deep love for tulips for many reasons: my mother loved them; they are harbingers of spring; they are to me a sign of stability. When I was married to my last husband, we moved so much that in the end I wanted two things: to be able to wake in the night and know the way to the bathroom without lights and to be able to plant something in the ground in the fall and still be there to see it come up in the spring.
The tulips I planted eleven years ago when I moved into this house are still coming up every spring. They are yellows and reds and occasionally orange. Later I came to want something a little fancier than that, so I planted some pale pink tulips in the front of my house. They were so beautiful people walking by would stop and comment on them. Suddenly my neighbors were planting bulbs in the fall! I didn't know that the hybrid (or fancy) tulips don't last forever like the more prosaic bulbs. So, my pale pink tulips flamed out after five or six years. I replaced them with white bulbs last fall. I hope I will like them as much, but I don't think they will be as spectacular as the pink!
What's this got to do with recovery from alcoholism? In my mind, just about everything.
- By the grace of God, I am no longer living from one crisis to another and have the luxury of brain space and energy to devote to tulip bulbs
- As a totally unexpected side effect of being employed for many years in a row (thank you God), I have been able to remain in my house for almost 11 years. Therefore I can plant things and watch them grow
- Because I am sober, I can be a "nice" old lady instead of a drunken lunatic inside a ramshackle dwelling.
The grace of God seems to have no bounds. But I'll keep pushing.
Have a great sober first day of April, 2012. I will too. Going in a few minutes to pick up my daughter to go to my homegroup with me! What could be better?
7 comments:
I planted tulips last year, I thought they had died and felt my usual failed self.
Yesterday, I was hanging washing out and spotted....one red tulip!!!
I am a gardener!!!
Your tulips have EVERYTHING to do with recovery.
How many did you plant during your last few years of drinking?
Making this world a better place, one tulip at a time.
My dad's mother was an alcoholic, she died of wet brain. Actually, she got hit by a car when walking down the street during the night in her pajamas..because of wet brain.
Anyway, she lived in a ramshackle house. It was creepy, and I hated going there as a child.
I planted a lot of tulips this year but the squirrels ate the bulbs. Next year, I will put little cages around the tulip bulbs. Recovery is about solutions!
Beautiful. I moved a lot as a child and I know how nice it feels now to set down roots. I'm glad you have that too.
I think they look great in the photo just how they are, against a dark early morning background.
My Amaryllis has just flowered but I've no camera at the minute . . . It's beautiful.
Oh the tulips and their meaning.... beautiful!
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