Bloom. Like a freakin' echinacea.

Here is what tending the front yard has taught me: When things are right, you gotta bloom.  And you gotta bloom hard.  Like a flamingo pink, scratchy-leafed and unapologetic freakin' echinacea.  I’d even argue that to do less is a disservice to everyone else.

The thought has been sitting with me since late last summer, when the echinacea stalks in my own garden were so tall, I had to stake them with bamboo posts.  (Gotta love Napa soil.)  I was, as usual, nervously talking my wound-up insides off a cliff about the upcoming school year.  It was early August, the typical time to to douse myself head-to-toe in self-doubt.  What was I thinking?  How could I possibly make any contribution to our community of reluctant teenagers and already very smart colleagues? 

And then a neighbor walked by, and shook that self-conscious drizzle off me 'til my hair puffed out like a blowdried spaniel. 

"Hey, thanks!" he called out.  "I've lived in this neighborhood for forty years, and no one has taken care of this yard like you guys.  Looks great!  Love seein' it!"  And he grinned, and kept walking.

I love our front yard.  When my husband and I first signed our mortgage, with a doughy baby in-hand and bank account drained, our yard was covered by a sprawling, medieval cactus that stood taller than me.  Previous tenants had let that cactus, and a sentinel of unkempt junipers, sprawl across most of our front yard.  It might have kept the bidding wars down, but a yard full of cactus spines and juniper pollen is really not our thing.  This was our first house, and it looked like Yosemite Sam was going to ambush from behind a succulent at any minute.

My husband spent months of hot summer weekends wrestling life back into our yard, while I took care of our firstborn.  This was not just an issue of grass.  It was drainage, irrigation, drought-tolerant flowers, a little stone pathway... even a wall made from discarded vineyard rocks.  We agonized over what kinds of roses to plant, and which colors of salvia place just-so.  Had anyone ever put so much thought into so little square footage?  It was a matter of vision; we couldn't imagine not fulfilling the promise of the very first front yard that had ever been ours to tend.  

We carefully planted (and dug up, and replanted, and pruned too hard, and under-watered, and started over) our little patch of earth because: a) we felt like we had to, and b) it made us happy.  "An itch that we had to scratch" is too trivial; it felt more like  a destiny that we had to bring to fruition.  It was like bound-up flower petals, that simply had to unfurl in sunlight.  

We didn't do it for the neighborhood.  We did it for us.  But- if I may be so bold- after a couple years of planting and regrowth- the neighborhood digs our yard too!  It is a rare a Saturday morning that I don't see a dog walker, a stroller-pusher, or a weekend tourist taking notice of our botanical hodgepodge.   Responses range from the subtle nudge at a walking partner, to an all out stand-and-point.  We see it all the time when we breakfast by the window, and I will admit is an immensely gratifying form of voyeurism-and-coffee.

So, back to that friendly neighbor: what he meant to do, was say thanks for cleaning up our prickly mess of a front yard.  But he caught me deep in thought, dipping my toes into the waters of prayer, while I tied up a gargantuan echinacea.  He was showing gratitude for our doing something that seemed so right and beautiful to do, we couldn't not do it.  And that is the promise that I took with me into this school year.  I had pined for, and pursued, a position that seemed scarily wonderful and a little presumptuous.  But I trusted that it was right.  My new position has blossomed into a season of new growth and relationships.   The promise has made good on itself tenfold. 

I'm grateful that others have heeded the call of what they felt they must do, without needing to reach for plant metaphors to walk them out of self-doubt.  What if Bob Dylan had said, Nah, nobody wants to hear these words?  What if Shakespeare had given into, Someone else could do this better than me?  What if my son's surgeon had decided that picking up a scalpel was just a little too beyond him?  It's not just individual fulfillment at stake; our choices shape the whole neighborhood.  

In the big picture, my yard- and my job- are arbitrary at best.  There are a lot of people for whom they don't matter a bit.  But for me, and for the folks around me, it's a kind of  a something.  I take it as a tiny slice of divinity. 

My garden (and my friendly neighbor) have taught me that when something feels deeply good and undeniably right, don't ignore the tug.  Acting on it is an act of faith.  Not every seed will grow, but sometimes the beginnings of an idea can take root, and suddenly you've got oranges and pinks and blues and pollen for the bees and beauty for the neighbors.  

This time of year, echincaea has a ways to go; what was nose-high last August is barely a cluster of green leaves right now.  But I know what's ahead; I've seen it before.  The rest of Napa, on the other hand, is an embarrassment of color.  In neighborhoods, people's roses are making their first debuts of the season.  Along the highway, the last of the golden poppies are hanging on for a few more shows.  Tender spring leaves are fanning out from grapevines valley-wide.     

This morning, I took a few minutes to patch a bald spot in our yard, because my  husband and I still look out our window and see a little more we need to do.  (That itch to scratch- or whatever you want to call it- sticks around for years if you're lucky.)  I knew just the right plant for the job.  There's a good chance that by the end of this growing season I'll be needing to scavenge for more bamboo posts.  But that's okay- sometimes you just have to let things bloom.