Update: New Growth This Spring

Or more like new growth this summer!

And then this happened.

A cactus I did not even know flowered...flowered! I wrote a piece here about all of the amazing things happening in my garden which included flowering cactus..but this one was all the way on the other side of the house.

I do not know the name of this beauty. I don’t have that app people have and I tried googling it, but there are just way too many pink flowers on cactus images and lists. I could not figure it out at all.

I got this particular cactus from my parents years ago when they got rid of some of my dad’s cactus collection. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’ve tended to it by mostly doing nothing. A lot of the time I forget it’s there. Actually, in full disclosure, I often forget it exists.

And then the other day, I was walking near the path where it lives in its happy little pot, and there were these two huge flowers on it. So pretty. So delicate but so sturdy at the same time. And the flowers are almost disproportionally large; like when you put a headband with a huge flower on a baby. This cactus was basically a baby with a headband with a flower on it.

And I was so startled by it that I figured I needed to report on it here and find the ‘lesson’ in it. The lessons of this flowering cactus:

1. Surprises happen - and they can be pleasant!

2. Sometimes you forget about things and these things will oftentimes remind you of their value in the most startling ways.

3. Don’t assume that just because something is unassuming that it does not also hold incredible beauty.

I thought of moving this cactus. Because it’s so pretty - especially right now when it’s in bloom. So why should I keep it where it is if it can have a more front-and-center existence? But then something occurred to me. It’s happy right where it is. It’s likely it would bloom anywhere, but maybe it’s happiest exactly where it is and that environment is exactly the environment it needs to bloom exactly as it wants to.

And so this leads me to yet another lesson this cactus brings:

4. Sometimes it’s best to leave well enough alone.

There’s an expression for this that comes to mind: don’t “gild the lily.” It’s an idiom, for those of you familiar with grammar from the 5th grade. It means: “to unnecessarily decorate or embellish something that is already beautiful or perfect.” So I’m not moving it.

I’m going to leave it right where it is and the only thing I plan to change is how often I take it in. Because:

5. Things don’t last forever. Especially beautiful things.

6. Enjoy things right in this moment, exactly when they’re happening.

I wonder if this cactus will flower yearly. I hope so. And also - I need to hold onto its beauty, but not too tightly.

Thank you, cactus, for all of your continuing lessons.