Someday when friends and I share the good things that came out of the pandemic of 2020, I can tell them how I discovered an abundance of roses just beyond my front door.
A paved walking and biking trail near my home has provided my favorite route for power walking during the nine years I’ve lived in Colorado. Neighbors might also have seen me passing by frequently on the long, uninterrupted main street through our subdivision. Always I was warming up or cooling down on my way to or from these routes, always in the process of getting there or returning.
Then the pandemic and resulting safety requirements reached Fort Collins. Nice as the city-maintained trail is, it doesn’t lend itself to distancing from others. Even the neighborhood main street became difficult to use, as an extraordinary number of people were also out walking. Not wanting to wear a mask in the fresh air, I was forever crisscrossing and walking down the middle of the street to avoid other walkers. I had to find some other route.
Not far from my house, two shorter streets crisscross and meet again at the bottom of a hill. I had rarely been in this out-of-the-way part of my neighborhood. Hoping for empty sidewalks, I headed there early in May.
Not only did I find the sidewalks empty, but I also discovered gardens full of spring flowers, many of them blooming right by my feet. A lovely and gracious statement of welcome, it seemed, and I made a mental note to try to create the same effect in my own yard. The two quiet streets instantly became my new favorite route. Retracing my steps made up for their relatively short length and offered engaging new perspectives of what I had just passed.
Eventually the weather turned quite warm and the spring flowers faded. It was hard not to feel disappointed, but I turned my attention to the huge trees sheltering rich green grass and turning patios and decks into enchanting retreats.
Then it happened: roses began to bloom. One day I spotted a couple of bushes, two days later a couple more. And so it went for several days, then a couple more weeks, until I was dumbfounded by how many gardens harbored roses.
I wondered how it had happened that this secluded part of the neighborhood was so special. On my way home, however, I suddenly noticed several rose bushes blooming in the yard across from mine. Startled and curious, I walked a short distance to the east. Roses bloomed in front of each house. I turned back and was about to walk up my driveway when my mouth dropped open: roses bloomed at the corner of my next door neighbor’s yard to the west. As usual, I had been so focused on where I was going that I hadn’t seen what I was passing by.
After that I spotted roses on bicycle rides out of the neighborhood and on drives exploring parts of Fort Collins my husband and I hadn’t visited before. In the summer of the pandemic, I will tell my friends someday, I saw more roses in gardens than I had seen in all the previous summers I had lived here.
My older daughter Julie, who gives support and suggestions with infinite patience on each upcoming post, created a unique view of roses in a poem that I love entitled “Reverie”:
For fun, I fancy myself an earthworm
in an English garden,
wallowing fat and happy
under some dame’s prize-winning rosebush.
Safe from early birds
and children’s curious fingers,
I munch away at dirt
while the rain keeps my skin
deliciously moist.
At the first sign of sun,
I shall burrow away into the roots
and dream earthworm dreams
of succulent mud puddles.
I love how you see the positive in the challenging life we are experiencing. Hopefully all of us have learned to appreciate some of the hidden gems around us that we previously were too busy to notice. Another great post!
Thanks, Imo Jeane. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Yes, stop and smell the roses, but first you have to see them. Your eyes are seeing anew.
That’s for sure, Carol.
Well expressed. You could do some marquetry images. ???
A rose was actually the first image I ever created in marquetry. Working on a bird right now.
My favorite subject nature abounds In the city. Thank you for sharing your finds. I have mine as well as I explore other areas of my neighborhood.
This might be one of those topics that relates to many readers, Gwynne, just as the poem about buttons did.
Love your rose experiences. I have 4 ultra- named bushes which just look at me, and then I have a $5 Trader Joe’s bush with 25 blooms happily waving at me.
Love,
Doris
Thanks for the chuckle, Doris. And I’m glad you enjoyed walking with me, so to speak.
Evocative writing, Sally! I love the reference to slowing down and noticing – making the usual unusual and new! A bright spot in my day
to read of your experience. Sharon
I love it when my posts make bright spots in people’s days. Thanks for telling me.
Thank you for allowing me to take safe walk with you during a pandemic. What beauty we found! Thank you!
Glad you joined me and enjoyed it, Becky.