The action of taking the photos is followed by the anticipation of developing and delivery, to see the results upon a screen. Finally I get to share the blossoms with others unable to be there and witness the flowering.
Not long ago I purchased a single perennial I had located after much reading and coveting through illustrations. Somewhat rare and new to the trade, it was too expensive to purchase more than a single plant. I nurtured and watched it come into its first flowering. The immature plant was lacking in number and size of bloom and the noted lush foliage was absent. I decided to wait another year to take photographs. The second opportunity never presented itself, for during our hot and dry July and August, the plant gave up the ghost and departed my garden forever.
First came the sadness of losing something living, then getting over being miffed about losing my investment. The realization that this was certainly not my first disappointment led to sitting on my big "worry" rock and remembering some of the history of my garden.
No two years, or any single season, year to year, is ever the same in the garden. Plants die; others fill in the vacant space. Weather and each plant's response are different year to year. The variables are almost endless. As much as I imagine the garden as stable and continuing, a picture in my mind of how I want it to be, the garden has its own life, independent of my visions and expectations.
Being an individual of habit, one who enjoys the disciplines and orders of life, I find it at times difficult to accept my garden going its own way. The garden simply will not stay structured, predictable, or under my complete control. In fact, at times, it is down right messy in habits.
Looking back I find the same pattern in life as with the garden experience. I thoroughly enjoy coming up with concepts. The detailed pictures in my mind of how the future will be. The organizing, the structuring, the execution of the plantings and the "making things happen". Now I also see how a large amount of time was spent readjusting to the realities of any given project as it progressed. No single long-term plan I have ever made for life, or my garden, has materialized as originally envisioned. Sometimes not as good as I had wanted, but more often simply beyond what I could have initially visualized.
Each experience has been a teaching tool with the underlying main lesson missed until relatively recently. Life can not be made to happen. Thank the gods for that, for it is in the "making" that the disappointments and frustrations lie. If life truly could become only what I was capable of conceiving yesterday, think how limited my todays.
To observe, to learn from and relax with open eyes. To be awake and participate in the flow or pattern present, experiencing the surprise and joy. The order, the discipline of all lies not within one's self, but in the unfolding.