Opened to the Prospects of this Day

Ever since experiencing them in their quintessential South Pacific habitat, we have potted a hibiscus plant on our deck.  Something about the blossoms -- whether pink or red or yellow or even orange -- is calming; soothing; slowing, like life in that island paradise.  The flowers open unreservedly; full face -- not so much as horticultural exhibitionists but rather echoing Eden's naive hospitality to the moment, as if to absorb anything and everything the sun or the clouds or the activities nearby might have to offer.  That's precisely the way we experienced the people of the islands -- present, open, attuned to each particular moment, recognizing that this moment is all we really have.  It is a strangely attractive, yet uncomfortably disorienting perspective for westerners like us bred and formed to plan and prepare and anticipate, occasionally remember, and live virtually anywhere except the present tense.  The very idea, for two people whose mother's milk was the Protestant Work Ethic, tempted us as something alluringly, almost borderline immoral.  We haven't been able -- actually, even remotely willing -- to let go of the idea.  What seemed so natural for those we met there among the blossoms has come to represent for us almost a spiritual discipline.

And so each spring we go out in search of the perfect hibiscus plant that can anchor the view on our deck; a reminder; an incentive. 

So it was that a week ago, while gathering a few extra bedding plants for the pots and the planter boxes, we kept our eyes open.  Unsuccessful, we finally asked an employee who showed us these bucket sized pots full of soil from which protruded a single wooden stub about 2-inches high.  Looking at our helper with barely veiled skepticism I asked, "Will I even still be alive by the time this thing puts out blossoms?" 

With the same kind of expression I'm guessing beamed from the face of the guy who traded Jack a handful of bean seeds for the family cow with the promise that they would produce a beanstalk that would reach to the clouds, the employee assured us that this perennial would be far superior to puny little plants with which we were more familiar.  "Blossoms the size of plates," he told us.  Fine, I thought.  If I live that long.

Nevertheless, we bought it; stuck it not in a pot on the deck but in the ground where it will supposedly reappear year after year after year in all its plate-sized blossoming glory.  And I will say that in the week since that planting already a sprig of new growth has emerged from the stump.  "August," he reassured us regarding its flowering.  Fine, but as energizing as anticipation can be, it sort of runs counter to the idea of focusing on the present.  So this weekend we plan to venture out again to the greenhouses in search of something for the pot on the deck -- a hibiscus plant with blossoms perhaps smaller but already opened to the prospects of this day, reminding us that we could be too.