Battle of The Bulbs

 THE BATTLE OF THE BULBS

I was talking with a gardener the other day and mentioned the once beautiful sight of a beautiful tulip and equally beautiful hyacinth growing in the same garden bed. I have often seen tulips on their own and hyacinths on their own, but never together. He said:

“I’d never put them together. There is something mysterious about their bulbs. Much like certain people: I love them in isolation but they just don’t belong together.”

As it turned out, he was right. A beauty that was once there, is no more. The lone hyacinth shrivelled and died, while the tulips lived on for many weeks to come.

Lesson learned. I feel a story coming on …

Once upon a time in a garden like the one in Eden, there lived a tulip and a hyacinth in the same hood. They were like neighbours in a neighbourhood where everyone was filled with awe and envy when times were good, and sadness and dismay when things weren’t.

Tulip is strong and sturdy; resilient; confident; independent and like most bulbed plants, she resurrects year after year and thrives best around her kind. 

Hyacinth, when ready, stands tall and firm. She keeps her petals close to her chest and seems to fan out ever so slightly, but forever protectively, occasionally. She has mastered poise and posture and that is what makes her so appealing to the others in the garden. But, behind that poise and posture, there is a reality that nobody can see from the outside. There is a weak gene within her reproducing bulb that shortens her lifespan when embedded with those who are not her kind. She is not a fighter, dies off prematurely, and vows to do better next year — but, her sad cycle continues. 

One dreary day Hyacinth asked Tulip: “What is your secret?”

“Lead don’t follow.”

The response was short and blunt, and caused Hyacinth to take a step back to figure it out.  Every year she sets out to search for a comfortable bed. She would look and look for all kinds of options relating to locations, feed, moisture, wind, sun, and hormones. She tried to bond with the like-minded and those shunned by all other flora. She befriended the dwarfs and the giants; the colourful and drab. She was known and noticed by many, but embraced by few. Her life had been a very sad tale.

“What do you mean by that?”, she asks Tulip.

“I have been watching you struggle once again this season and every year your life ends in peril prematurely. Try something different next year. Move to another garden with your kind. Live by their example. 

You may look well with others flora, but you don’t fit in well with them. You may come across as confident, but the end result proves you are very lost and scared. You are afraid of something when you are around others, yet you are desperate to be around them, desperate to be seen, wanted and loved.  The path you have been following leaves you alone, very alone; depressed, sad and forlorn.

Find fresh soil, good drainage, a spot with natural sunlight and a bit of daily shade. Instead of shrinking in sadness, face your memories and motives, stick with your kind and then start growing. Like in the human world, new borns and orphans aren’t farmed out until they are ready to go. You jumped ahead too quickly. Listen to your bulb.”

As Hyacinth reaches another end to her annual cycle, she feels struck by a ray of much needed wisdom from an arm’s length tulip who believes in her potential to do better. She will never again embed herself into a garden plot designated to others or for others. 

As so it was, in that garden much like Eden’s, Hyacinth lays herself to rest embracing the beat of her bulb, rather than the bulbs of others, and it's that rhythm that will lead the way to a life she has always yearned for, but never quite reached.

THE END