Summer’s Symphony

Right now, the orange and yellow lilies are blooming. They’ve taken center stage, commanding the garden, impossible to ignore.

Yesterday, while weeding, I decided to cut back the peonies. Their beautiful, big-blossom movement had ended a week or so ago. Their leaves were crowding the plants already playing their part around them. As I trimmed away the spent blossoms and heavy stems, I realized I wasn’t simply tidying the flower bed.

I was lowering one section of the orchestra so another could be heard.

Almost immediately, I noticed the hostas’ unique sound. Their blossoms had suddenly had room to breathe. They had taken their cue but couldn’t be heard over the peonies’ elephant-like presence. The peony section always needs the conductor’s help to lower its volume. I wonder if it’s time to transplant the bush to its own stage. It’s grown too big for this one.

Standing there with my pruners in hand, I wondered how much easier life might be if the transitions in human life were more like those of these flowers.

The peonies never seem offended when the gardener silences them.

The hostas’ blossoms don’t rush their entrance. They wait until the light, the season, and the music belong to them.

Even winter, which asks so much of every perennial, is accepted without complaint. They disappear beneath frozen ground for months, trusting this quiet season is part of the symphony, too.

I don’t know how they do it. I have to leave Maine winters for a month in February to get me through.

No trusting the conductor for me.

I have to add my own extra season, between autumn and spring. When I come back to Maine in March, I’m ready to rejoin the orchestra.

Maybe I’m more like gladiolus—dug up, stored, and returned when the time is right.

Human life doesn’t move with the effortless grace of a perennial garden. We need vacations. Sabbaticals. Therapy. Friends. Sometimes we need someone else to prune us back. Sometimes we need someone to lift us out of the ground entirely until we’re ready to bloom again.

Maybe grace is simply this: knowing when give up control, when to step back, when to unapologetically shine, when to need help, like the peonies, and when to rise again.