The Irises’ Lament

When we moved into our house several years ago, my mother gave me irises that once belonged to my great-grandmother. She had planted them at my childhood home. Now, she wanted me to have them for my new home and for the family I might grow there.

A Wish, A Seed, A Remembering

In recent years, making a wish on a dandelion has become a reclaimed birthday ritual of mine. When I was a child, I believed the cottony dandelion fields that would appear around my birthday were a magical gift, as if the Earth had made them just for me. I would run through them, kicking up the puffs, blowing out fluffy bouquets, hoping that something bigger than myself would see me as worthy.