The short irises

The green stem cracks its way out of the cold wintery ground. The fresh tender green leaves full of promise, contrast the dry dead mulch around it. Holding the promise of spring, my irises begin to bloom. I am beyond delighted.

I think of fall and how I barely managed to get the bulbs in. Well, a good chunk of them at least. Serves me right, to get a warehouse size bag of bulbs from Costco. Why couldn’t I buy a mere dozen from a garden store?

But again, thinking of beautiful purple-petaled beauties, keeps my knees planted to the ground. For years, I have wanted irises in the yard. My determined look and general ineptitude with the shovel, elicits my husband’s help. I see a sea of irises (okay more like a few clumps), waving elegantly on tall stems, turning my garden into a spring paradise.

I put the bulbs in. I mostly forget about them. As also the spots where I plant them. Till the earth cracks and the leaves pop out.

The irises arrive. Tiny irises. Short irises. I look at them puzzled.  

Sure, you’re sweet and pretty. But where are my long stemmed beauties?

I can’t bring myself to completely accept these as mine. The irises in my mind are tall and imposing, after all. I wonder if I did something wrong. Did I not plant them deep enough, should I have added some special iris food? Did I get the wrong kind? There are kinds…?

Surely, these can’t be mine. Yet they are. Each time I look at them, I feel a strange simultaneous twinge of happy and sad. 

Quietly, I wonder how many short irises there have been in my life.

The short irises are indeed delicate and pretty, on their own accord. Yet, not what I was expecting. Had I set my expectation so high, that I can no longer bring myself to love their shorter counterparts?

Worse yet, I secretly admonish myself for my unfair treatment of the short irises. These pretty irises deserve so much more, so much better. 

They are pretty and dainty and their petals make the same perfect formation. So what if they are not a reflection of what my mind held? They are perfect in their own way. Who am I do decide how they should be? Why should it even be this big an effort to accept them the way I would have the tall elegant ones. Am I shallow, judgemental, or simply stubborn?

I decide I am neither. My tiny short irises are perfect. Once I am no longer hung up on the tall ones. Once I can shift my focus on the beauty of the short irises, rather than their lack, which is really not even their lack in the first place, but more a perception of a lack in my eyes.

They may not be what I was expecting. But they’re gorgeous and precious on their own. And it remains up to me to choose between enjoying my short irises to the very fullest, or hankering for the long stemmed ones. I hope I will make the right choice.

Again, I wonder how many short irises there have been in my life.

Here’s to giving each short iris its own place and worth… here’s to noticing and enjoying its beauty… one short iris at a time…