Bloom Where You’re Transplanted

Creative Writing, Moments In Between by gobsmackedblog

Hello my patient friends!

It’s been 10 months, I think, since I’ve last ventured to this page, and the vast blankness below these words frightens me so. There have been many times this year when the chaos of my life could have easily given birth to creativity, to fulfilling prose, but I have neglected to nurture it.

I am a writer who’s forgotten how to write. Ahhhhhhhhh! (exhibit A).

So, here we are now: a writer unacquainted with the page, a reader unacquainted with a writer. But if, after my prolonged sabbatical of sludge, you think I’m still worth listening to, then I feel compelled to write.

Growing Season

2022 was the year of change, of celebration, of milestones, but then again, I would say most of my recent years have been.

In October, I married my best friend, my puzzle piece 🙂

On our honeymoon in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, we spent our blissful days driving the Kancamagus Highway, mixing morning coffees with the mountain air. It felt like we were living in an oil painting — the blur of splendid autumn colors our backdrop, the promise of adventure our distant horizon.

We made every effort to freeze that collection of magical moments in time.

But my husband and I are beholden to a visa process that also appears to be frozen in time.

We are trans-continental newlyweds, spending most of our time together, apart. Grrrrr (exhibit B)

Uprooted, replanted

When I work in my mum’s garden, I often think about my four years in Slovakia, when I let my roots reach out for the newness of it all. As a new part of me bloomed from the foreign soil, I grew comfortable, and eventually, complacent. My roots had started to resit any sort of budge and I realized I had grown as much as I could have.

So I uprooted my life to New Hampshire, to ready a new garden for my husband and I to take root in together. We’re both ready to plant ourselves here, but our spring has not arrived yet. So for now, we wait and take inspiration from other plants with similar stories to tell.

My mum’s garden, a lush paradise where every plant seems to grow in any direction it pleases, is full of plants that once had roots in other gardens but have now chosen to thrive in her pocket of the world.

The front beds are tucked in by a thick duvet of vinca. The herb garden out back is buried beneath a cloak of oregano, with tufts of chocolate mint peaking beneath. All of these plants are transplants, with adaptable roots that surprise even the most seasoned of gardeners.

Growing season

I have been transplanted as a small seedling, as a sapling just starting to form roots, as a well-established plant who felt a bit closed in by the surrounding soil.

I’ve been uprooted, and have uprooted myself, more than a few times. It’s made my roots adaptable and in need of different nutrients from different soils to fully grow. The climate has been harsh at times, with surprise storms testing the strength of my core stem. But us transplants are made of hearty stuff.

So as I toil away at the soil and wait for my co-plant, the one who always turns my head towards the sun, I stretch out my transient roots and remember the lesson of the year, the years, most of my life:

Bloom where you’re transplanted.

Anna

11 Comments

  2. Nancy Sartori
    Reply

    Dear Anna, thank you for writing again your beautiful prose !! You are a gentle flower in our garden called LIFE !! Enjoy Nancy Sartori

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      1. Nancy Sartori

        Hi Anna, our dear Rachelle has moved back to Montana but this time to Bozeman, accepting the position of Director of Nutrition through the University of Montana. I will let her share her news with you !!! Please keep in touch ! Nancy

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Elena
    Reply

    Dear Anna! How nice to read your lovely writing again! The theme has been on my mind lately, too, as I’ve just moved (not a transcontinental move, just to a new city, but I’m feeling it all the same) after feeling for a while that I could not grow anymore where I was before. The other day I listened again to an old Mumford & Sons song and this line spoke to me: “I will learn to love the skies I’m under”. I guess that’s what we’re doing, right?

    I truly hope you two can reunite soon, for good, and can’t wait to hear about the garden you’ll grow together! 🙂

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    1. gobsmackedblog
      Reply

      Elena!! It’s so good to hear from you, my friend 🙂 I’ve never heard that lyric before but I absolutely love it! What a perfect way to frame life’s changing landscape in a positive light. Would love to catch up with you sometime soon, preferably in person somewhere in this beautiful world!

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  5. Emily Krakowski
    Reply

    Gosh I only wish I read this sooner. Rachie was right! And this is so beautifully written and resonates so deeply. You’re a gifted one, my Anna-banana 💛 Can’t wait for more!!

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