It’s always a surprise, even though they come up in the same place, at the same time each year — the wooded slope at the edge of our property. Home to the wild asparagus in spring and the autumn jonquils. It’s an explosion of yellow, but you have to want to see it. You have to look for it. You have to brave the slope. Such gentle and confident beauty to grow in a place where few bother to search. 

I saw them yesterday. I was nearly two hours into mowing the lawn. On the last stretch. Tired. Losing interest in the nature of things. Edging slowly toward the slope, behind the greenhouse, I saw them. Dancing in the sea of yellow that they made for themselves. How delightful, I thought, (and always think), that they bloom just behind the house of glass where it would be so easy. 

Placing them on the table, I could hear Dr. F. Dixon Conlin tell my mother, who was standing by my hospital bed dressed all in yellow’s joy, “Wow, you look just like a jonquil.” It was my first time hearing the flower’s name, but not the first time I saw my mother looking like one. Because she always brought the joy, from head to toe, even in the most unlikely of places. She was by my side, surgery after surgery, never once looking like what her insides must have felt. 

Maybe this is what keeps me searching out the unimaginable. Keeps me daring the slope. There is joy to be found. Hidden seas of yellow just waiting. My mother taught me that. Her lesson shines on our kitchen table.