#SOL24-2 Orchid

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
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This day is so rainy, I don’t know how much light Dear Orchid will receive this morning. All the same, I think she likes it here, sitting on the table next to me, listening to my early morning chatter. We both enjoy watching the sun warm up this room, spreading its happy rays about. 

That’s not happening today, with this steady rain.  

My early morning routine these past couple of months: strive to get up around sunrise, stumble walk my stiff aging feet to the front living room, pick up Dear Orchid and carry her to the window at the back of the house, the family room, to soak in the sun from the day. Next, turn on the space heater, to warm up the family room. Make myself a cup of tea and settle down in the chair alongside her, and write.

My pets are my plants. I don’t have the four legged variety. I have green leafy ones. 

Dear Orchid is proving to be a challenge. She means a lot to me – a gift at my birthday back in early December from my son’s girlfriend. I adore the girlfriend – one must keep the plant thriving, right?

Within a matter of weeks of her arrival, Dear Orchid began to show signs of acute stress. Her flowers and leaves began to droop and, most ominously, a new flower bud dropped off without opening. All my other houseplants are thriving in this room; Dear Orchid was not. 

Orchids are sensitive plants, needing just the right light and warmth. I realized that the family room is much too cold overnight for Dear Orchid, at this time of year. Fresh from a greenhouse, I am sure she wasn’t spending her nights in temperatures in the 50s, as this room can be overnight – oh my. Dear Orchid made her protests clear to me. 

I have patience for her, because I am sensitive, too. As a child, that adjective was a pejorative – “Oh, Maureen, you are way too sensitive!” All these years later, I can still hear the dismissive, taunting sound of the insult. No time for such nonsense in a military family, I guess. Cold and tough was better. In time (and therapy, of course), I learned the beauty of my sensitivity, my ability to pause and listen, to feel empathy, and to take care of others. Why shouldn’t we try to understand one another and meet each other’s needs?

What was I to do about Dear Orchid? 

The daylight in the family room was perfect, the dark of night was not. 

Our warm living room in the front of the house has a windowsill right above a radiator. However, it doesn’t get a lot of sun during the day, making it too dark for Dear Orchid. 

So began my intensive care regimen – letting the living room windowsill be Dear Orchid’s cozy warm ‘bed’ overnight, and bringing her into the happy sunshine of the family room for her days. We’ve been doing this routine for about eight weeks now and I am hopeful that it is just the right mix for her. Certainly, it is working for me – I enjoy her company. She brightens my writing nook. 

May she still be blossoming when my son and his girlfriend drop by again.

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