Letters to my daughters (July): BLOOM

My darling girls,

Our garden is really bursting with colour now. I feel so lucky we have that space to watch blooms unfurl, butterflies emerge and strawberries swell (then get eaten by slugs…) at this time of year. We are luckier than some to have a garden at all and I am grateful for each and every bloom we keep alive. (Snails, you are our nemesis.)

And it has made me think about how, when in bloom, we don’t look at each flower and compare it to another. We don’t scrutinise each one and wonder how it could be better than the one next to it. Our garden is brimming with beauty - and collectively, those blooms congregate to make that space full of exquisite life. Thank goodness for variety and differentiation; our garden would look weird if all the blooms were uniform. The same. On repeat.

And it made me think about our own blooming, our own variety and difference.

You are now both blooming in your own gorgeous ways – so different and yet grown from the same patch. Individually, your colour and vitality come in different shapes, at different speeds, at different times of the year even. And whilst the world will ensure we compare you to others (and each other) – through sports day races, through exam results, through the versions of ‘success’ that are the weft and weave of education, our working lives, our membership in society – I know that you will bloom in your own way. And I am grateful and excited for that.

Look at your sunflowers, reaching up and defying the snails to keep growing, towards the light each day. So what, that one might be taller than the other! Are they not, in their own pots, glorious and magical examples of growth and life and vitality? They don’t wrestle with comparison-itis or live a life with low level self-doubt. They crack on, doing the best they can, with the resources they have available. They are each a miracle.

Your blooming requires its own set of conditions – different from other people’s and even different from each other’s. When you unfurl your petals and draw us in, when your flowers emerge and invite us to enjoy you, it will be because you have what you need, in the right quantities, at the right moment. Knowing what nutrients you need will help you to bloom in your own precious way.

Not every one of us has a great big, extravagant flower to show off. Some of our blooms are more subtle: hiding in the shade maybe, or pungent or textured, rather than showy or flash.

You don’t need to be more or less of anything. You don’t need to be better, improved or enhanced. You need to know that your beauty, however subtle and quiet, is an essential part of the whole – a bloom amongst blooms – that adds variety to the gardens of our lives.

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I have been recently thinking that, having just turned 46, I might be in the summer of my life. Or thereabouts. At least, I think I am. If all goes well, it sounds about right.

But with Shirley passing this month aged 45, and Granny Bel going at 48 all those years ago – maybe I shouldn’t be so complacent. I don’t want to be morbid; I am confident I have a long stretch ahead. But what does it remind us, when these particularly fine blooms – these outrageous peonies and these exotic orchids that I have known – are cut down in their summertime prime?

It reminds me that we have a lot to be grateful for.

It reminds me – and I want it to remind you too – to know what you need to bloom. And to go out and find it. Don’t be afraid to unfurl those petals and show us your beauty – whatever colour, texture or shape. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. Don’t be afraid to lean into the wind and rain and become stronger as a result. Be as shy as you need to be. But don’t be afraid.

Gratitude, that nebulous thing, does wonders for how we see the world. It is hard to find when your sister is annoying you or you’re tired from a day at school. It’s really hard to find when you’re hungry. I know!

But gratitude can lift you, with grace and without fear, above the mechanics and detail of the day to day and allows you to see a bigger picture. It takes you out of yourself and your daily concerns – even for a moment – and connects you to the wider world you live in. It focuses your brain (the oldest part of it) on the positive – which allows you to keep seeing the positive. It is a beautiful loop that will stand you in good stead.

And when I see you my girls, in the Springs of your lives, winding your soft climbing stems around your experience, reaching out to the light and moving towards your own blooming – I feel extraordinarily lucky. If this is my summer, I want to enjoy every drop of nectar it produces. I want to feel the joy in every moment, and the beauty in every flower I grow.

Summer months can be a whirlwind of activity and logistics. In its more forgiving flashes, it can also produce moments in a hammock that allow us to notice and to be grateful.

Granny Bel’s friend Sue always used to remind me to ‘make sure you make time to smell the roses.’ And I’m passing on this pearl of wisdom to you too.

Slow down. Begin to notice and tune into what we have to be grateful for. Enjoy every bloom you pass and remember how glorious it is just to plunge your nose into an open rose.