See How It Grows

This is my Boddhi Impatiens. It started as a seed kit in an actual 100oz steel can which was given to me by Jen. The first tender green shoot poked its little self through the diatomaceous earth in which it was packed around the time I wrote my clinic entrance exam in March. When I not only passed but posted the high score, I took it as a nice sign, not because I am actually superstitious but because I thought it would make a nice, living metaphor for this last year of "becoming the medicine" as I began to treat patients and tangibly feel out what kind of doctor I will become, at least as far as Yo San is concerned.

And so the shoot sprouted leaves, and the single stalk grew taller. A few new shoots appeared, but then died back. The original stalk grew so tall it began to tilt over under its own weight, grown too quickly for its tiny root system to firmly hold it to the soil, so I clipped a slender support in to help it on its way. I watered, watched and waited. Buds appeared, but the blooms were pale and anemic looking, and began to shrivel and brown at the edges before the flower was even fully opened. And still that stalk grew taller. Kind of like me my first term in clinic--a few small successes, more shortfalls, still so much potential into which to grow.

I knew that the plant needed to be placed in a bigger pot and more expansive environ if it was going to grow to its full potential. I dug out a clay pot from the pile outside my kitchen door, mixed some potting soil with some bone meal, gingerly turned my little charge out of its can and laid it gently into the pot, packing it carefully with soil, and set it outside by my door next to that beautiful flowering tree tragically inflicted with the Yoda-hair mites. And exhaled. And watered, watched, and waited.

The first two days were difficult--that soil dried out so quickly and I came home to find the leaves hanging limply. I've killed plants before by transplanting them. It has been such a long time since I was a little girl helping my grandmothers tend their rich and abundant gardens, I find I don't remember as much as I should. Or maybe I never did, just watched and followed their lead. In any case, the plant survived its first week.

And then I began to see new leaf buds sprouting out of that single surviving stalk
every day. They grew into branches. There were more and more. Soon I saw flower buds everywhere. Then one Saturday as I left with my bike in hand, I saw it had covered itself in scarlet pink flowers overnight. It is covered still, and grows new leaves, new stalks, new branches every day. Occasionally leaves yellow and die, old blooms fade and fall away, making room for fresh bright ones.

As I sit next to it in the morning and drink my tea, I look at this simple flowering plant and think about this.