There is no easy orchid
There is no easy orchid
Stacia Priscilla
For Lydia Andarini
Here’s the hook, and all you have to do is loop it over and over until the pattern starts
locking itself within the hollow gaps no one ever talks about after they’re past giving
birth to their spent blooms: I am a working progress. I am working these withering
fingers out. I am weaving this story of stillness out of spilled milk and smeared foods
and mismatched socks and misplaced Legos, choked by the virtual air of perpetually
sunny dandelions, because I trust that keeping at this messy array will also keep me
from coming undone. There is no easy orchird. There lies everything I can let loose.
Even a man-made story like mine carries the seed of glory before its beholder that very
much anticipates that hopeful season of shine, the way we want to bask in the palpable
musk of our offspring’s successions of blooms and reblooms even after we’ve slipped
away. So I made a knot. I created a chain. I mend the stitches that need mending and
stay at my working yarn for this while, basking in the rhythm and wonder of my color
and watch its fragrance unravel unto its own kind. This is no mere ornament. This is me
subduing myself. This is me—an orchid, wife and mother, crochet and human.