The palo verde trees are once again blooming here in the desert. Their sunny yellow flowers open and then eventually fall. They make a blossom carpet on the sidewalks all around the neighborhood that never fails to make me smile.
I'd like to re-post this from last year because it reminds me of the joy that can be found in our most ordinary days and the people who share our lives.
Look for the joy today.
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Apple Seed Promises
We've had an unusually cool spring here in the Sonoron desert. Add that to some unheard of May temperatures and we are all extremely grateful. Jubilant even!
Doors and windows are being left open at night to let in the "free" cold air.
In a month that cooling draft will be very, very expensive.
Lately when Larry and I are out and about we're surprised see people in their yards in the middle of the day, in the middle of May. Kids can even be spotted in the neighborhood parks playing basketball at high noon!
They're all soaking up that wonderful "cool" before the long summer siege.
We can go somewhere practically every day in this weather, tooling along on our motorized carts in about a 5 mile radius from home.
Larry looks quite dashing in his Indiana Jones hat and dark glasses that the doctor says he must wear to keep safe from the sun. If he had a whip you'd look twice for sure.
Every restaurant, bank, and store knows us well.
Young people run to open doors for us and waitresses hurry to take away the chairs from our usual tables as soon as they spot us from across the street.
Teenaged carryouts vie to load us up with our groceries, knowing that we have special permission from management to tip them because we're so much trouble. Most of them know our routine. Just push Grandpa around because he can't see or hear, laugh at his jokes, put the water and other heavy stuff at his feet, and load Gma after she pays. It turns out that a $5 bill can still light a kid's eyes. We appreciate their help so much and that eye sparkle makes our day.
Yes, our little geezer parade has become a fixture in these parts, people honking and waving as they pass.
Once a stranger stopped to tell us we look so "cute," racing along the sidewalks together.
Great.
We've gone from being competent, contributing human beings to being cute.
Who thought it would come to this?
But at least I always win our races.
Larry has to follow me because of his poor vision. But as we go along our way I always stop by any bright flowers for him. He can see the red and orange Mexican birds of paradise now coming back after winter. Also the bright scarlet tips of the penstimmons and fairy dusters. And the spring palo verde trees that overhang the sidewalks. Now when we look up through them we see their green branches filled with yellow blossoms and blue sky. A breeze will bring a flower shower on our heads if we're lucky.
Those showers are a love note from Heavenly Father, you know.
Kim once told me about a visit to the Portland Oregon Temple. She said it was a glorious spring day and as they walked up to the temple doors a breeze brought a shower of pink blossoms that landed softly upon their heads from the trees overhanging the walks.
I love you too, Father.
People call out that I'm winning the little race we seem to be running, but Larry's always quick to explain to anyone who'll listen that his cart is actually faster than mine.
He tells them he just lets me win.
I tell them that he's been chasing after me for 50 years now.
One guy asked if he ever caught me.
I told him, "Well, sir, we do have children."
Anyway, even this late in May my patio pots look wonderful, spilled over with sweet allysum. And the johnny-jump-ups still make you smile at their purple and yellow giggles just as they did in the winter months.
Usually this sort of thing never happens so far along in the spring. By the first week of June my flowers are winding down due to the heat, starting to struggle and look a bit crispy no matter how much shade and water I provide. This time of year I must get ready to pull plants and shut down for the summer, just when mountain and beach folks are planting.
That's the saddest garden chore, the pulling of plants.
I did sow a few seeds for summer though.
Ones that are promised to be able to "withstand high temperatures."
I was seduced by a plant catalog filled with colorful pictures of varieties "sure to do well" in the hottest summer months.
Yes, I know those catalogs were written by liars.
Liars who live in Minnesota or Colorado.
What do they know about heat.
But hope indeed springs eternal.
And last year I did manage to grow a few precious Bells of Ireland from seed. Their spicy smelling green stalks filled a single flower arrangement with wonderful fragrance.
When I was just a girl I remember helping a dear neighbor in her garden who grew them by the bucketful. I wish I could talk to her now.
I'd also like to talk to the man who was the landlord of our first newlywed apartment.
There was a long wooden fence behind our building, all the kitchen doors opening to a sidewalk that ran along back. In the dead of winter he was busy out back planting seeds. By early spring the whole, long fence spilled over with six foot tall sweet peas, their fragrance filling the air, their colors a pink and purple parade waving to every eye that passed.
I remember leaving the kitchen door open all day to let their sweet fragrance in.
The landlord encouraged the tenants to pick as many flowers as we wished.
He said picking encouraged more blooms. I was happy to oblige.
Then when the flowers eventually went to seed he collected them to save in an empty coffee can. Hundreds of tiny miracles waiting patiently for next year's sun and moisture.
Sweet peas have been a favorite of mine ever since, tugging fond memories from this old head with their lively colors and old fashioned scent.
And so I've always been grateful for sweet pea seeds. And all the other kinds of seeds actually.
Because seeds are amazing things. Each one is a promise.
Take a close look at one and think about it. There's a great lesson to be found there.
Remember that old saying,
"You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a seed."
I used to post that on my classroom door as one of the "Great Thoughts" every year.
It brings to mind the scripture, "By small means great things are brought to pass."
Think of an apple for instance.
Cut it into pieces and count the seeds as they fall out. There will be just a few, enough to barely fill your palm.
But say you planted them all.
Perhaps half will take root and grow to seedlings.
Perhaps half of them will flourish into saplings. Maybe one or two will make it to maturity and become productive apple trees.
In season each of those full grown trees will produce many apples, hundreds perhaps, each containing a few seeds.
What if you planted all of the seeds from every single apple born by those trees?
What if you planted every seed from every apple from every tree that grew thereafter.
Apple after apple after apple. Season after season after season.
Think what that would mean. Think hard.
Seems like you may need a lot of ground to contain all those apple trees after a while.
After time, it might take a whole country to contain them, apple trees producing countless apples wherever they could grow.
Keep planting every seed from every apple, season after season after season.
After that, what? Given time, the whole earth would have every spot where apples could grow filled with trees.
Where would you plant the seeds then?
Seems like we may have apple trees "without number" eventually.
Perhaps you'd need a galaxy to hold them. Then perhaps a universe.
An eternal concept, that "without number" thing isn't it?
Too many to even count. Numbers won't go that high after time.
All from a seed small enough to be tiny in your palm.
Isn't that what Father says? "Worlds I have without number."
"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things come to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."
Alma 37:6
Does anything else behave like a seed?
Is a smile too small to be a seed? What could grow from it?
What about a kind word spoken? Or a harsh one not?
Small acts of kindness maybe? Or charity? Or work? Or love or sacrifice. Or little bits of determination or perseverence or self discipline.
What other small things can bring great things to pass?
What else can start something that will end up "without number."
What else holds the eternal promise of an apple seed?
Think about it.
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