The Easter Flower

Nashvillle, Tennessee

Hello friends, family, readers,

It’s been busy the past two months and I am ashamed I’ve neglected Homecoming so. Please take this vulnerable peice as my amends for the delay. And let me know in the comments if you can relate.

The title for The Easter Flower was inspired by my Grandma who on the phone this past winter told me about her blooming Easter flower. In the dead of Chicago winter, this flower was blooming and I thought, what a strange flower and what a stange time to bloom. And how so often we humans do the same: in the most unlikely times we come into our own in new and unpredictable ways.

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Inside these four walls with curtains drawn, the light is warm and soft. Inside these four walls I feel more myself than ever. This isn’t the first time I’ve made four walls my own, but this is the first time four walls of my own have felt so home.

Inside these four walls I am the Easter flower who out of season and in the winter blooms. There is a new wrinkle in my hand just above the base of my thumb and several smaller ones appearing below and outside my eyes. I found a new grey hair and my fat isn’t smooth anymore. It has dimples now and folds when I lean over. Ironically, as the beauty of youth fades, I bloom in a new way. Perhaps in life we bloom upon bloom in new ways like a revolving door or a winter that always returns.

When my fat was flat and skin tight and unwrinkled, I was a marionette hung on a hanger to be consumed. But as a woman, I do only what I want and don’t perform for anybody. If only I could have always been so free.

I am woman now who doesn’t say giggle cause I think I have to. I am woman now who has found a way to say that which has been aching in me to be said. I am woman now who doesn’t care about Valentine’s Day. I didn’t even cry because I am alone. Not even once.

Inside these four walls, I hang a painting I painted as a girl, along with photos of my aunts, grandmothers, sister and mother. I have cherry hardwood floors that are dark and stained in places. I have a dining table and a set of six chairs that creak, my books lined up by those read and unread, the place mats I bought in Japan, the table runner from Phuket, and the rug from my Great Aunt. Inside these four walls, winter is here and the Easter flower is blooming out of season.

I am woman now who has lost everything, including myself: Who’s rickety parts have been burnt away by fire, and in its place found something deeper. It’s no easy task to become who you really are when there’s a big wide world campaigning that you be who they want you to be. The Easter Flower’s strength and identity arise from being rooted in something deep. I’ve been forged in the fire and by the grace of God, I am woman now.