The Sound of Water

I hear birdsong through the rain.

But the relentless sound of falling rain drowns most of the songs. I'm not sure that I've yet noticed how green everything is. The trees hang heavy with leaf. And the wind that comes with today's rain showers moves the boughs with a long, slow, deep pull. I am still, and listen and watch for the beauty. 

The lilacs, rhododendron, and peonies sit spent on the stem and we wait for the next show of blossom. Probably the hydrangea. Already they are budding. They're my favorite flowers to cut and bring indoors. They don't stay on the shrub for long around here. I love the way the abundant flowers sit in the vase and fill the room with beauty. I love that the property here has about six shrubs and they seem to bloom forever. I love the way you can cut a stem or three and feel like you've got a full bouquet. But I also love a full bouquet. My place is small, so less is more. And a little more than that is extravagant.

I love visiting my mother in summer during the hydrangea bloom and seeing her shrubs heavy with deep purple flowers. I've never seen their equal. I usually cut the top off a water bottle and bring some home. They sit in the cup holder in my car and keep me company on the ride back and then gift my space once I arrive. Right now I'm waiting for some buds to open in a succulent garden my friend Sarah gave me last week. From the looks of it, the flowers will be a deep pink. The planter sits on my kitchen table, a chaotic profusion of succulence. I hear the sound of water swell within the leaves.

Cacti, bromeliads, and succulents are all succulents, as botanists characterize things. Horticulturalists have different criteria. Of course, not all succulents are bromeliads or cacti. I love to imagine the invisible ecosystem within. The superhighways upon which water travels and pools. They thrive in circumstances that undo others because of how they are adapted to hold and distribute their resources. And they are no less beautiful or diverse. There are six in this succulent garden. 

The transition team in my last congregation gave me a gorgeous succulent garden when I left. There are four cacti and four succulents in that dish and some of the plants have begun to grow and expand. The cacti are slow growing, but the four other succulents are growing in ways I did not expect. I look at that community of plants and wonder how they will all live together as so many of the plants begin to take up more space. I used succulents as a teaching tool in their process. They felt challenged by resources, even though they had the largest endowment of any church I've worked with so far. But even large endowments can empty like lakes in the desert when the waters are siphoned off to feed drought in other areas. 

A friend in Arizona posted a photo the other day of one of two natural lakes there that has dried up. I wonder what new wonders will grow there now.

A Hundred Days of Happiness is a daily writing practice that invites a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012 and every year brings new wonder. She asks big questions of the small things in life.