It happened at the height of summer - A week of 90-degree days and moist, muggy nights. The Walky-Talkies weren't getting together to walk because half of them were out of town and the rest of us didn't have enough energy to face the heat.
Merl was on a business trip in Colorado, for which I was trying not to hate him, and my little reading buddy Johnny Mac was at the beach with his family. Even the vegetables in my garden stayed limp and pathetic, no matter how much I watered them.
Okay, I admit it - I was hot, lonely, and pretty sorry for myself. So I did what I often do in such a situation: started a project. It's a deeply engrained habit I'm afraid, which can yield occasional results, but also get me in trouble. But I never learn, so on this day I suddenly decided I couldn't survive one more week without cleaning out the garage, organizing my photo albums, and writing those thank-you notes I'd been putting off. (Yes, I'm one of those who still writes thank-you notes.)
Of course, I also had my usual committee meetings and my wildflower column to write, plus I'd told Roberta I would water her flowers while she was out of town. Toward the end of the week when I got back from my second volunteer commitment of the day and saw the garage filled with piles of useless items, photos strewn across the dining room table, and a stack of unwritten notecards, I knew I'd taken on too much. I wanted to torch the garage, with all the photo albums thrown in, and I can't even tell you what I wanted to really write in those blankety-blank thankyou notes.
But I didn't torch the garage. Instead I made myself a little supper and sat down with a glass of iced tea to do the crossword puzzle in the paper. I was starting to feel a little better about life when I remembered Roberta's garden.
Oh, for heaven's sake! I thought. Roberta's pretty picky about that garden, and those flowers were bound to be drooping like cooked spaghetti in this heat. Reluctantly, I got in the car and drove over, even though it was almost dark.
Once I got there I decided evening is a pretty nice time to water a garden. It seemed the humidity had taken a turn that day, and the air wasn't so heavy. As I turned on the hose and pointed it toward the flowers, sweet scents floated up to me and I began to relax. There was a soft, pearly sheen to the evening air, pin-pricked by the yellow winking of lightening bugs.
As I wandered down the path through her garden, a movement caught my eye. I thought at first it was a yellow butterfly at the tip of a gangly weed, but then I realized it was a flower opening up before my eyes. It was like watching time-lapse film footage, but this was in real time. Then I saw there were other yellow flowers covering the plant, some clearly spent, some not ready to open, and some blooming before me like miniature silent fireworks, leaving a slight scent of honeysuckle in their wake.
Oh, my ... the evening primrose.
How is it I had forgotten Roberta had this amazing plant in her yard? Looking for all it's worth like a tall useless weed, the primrose produces blossoms that open up all at once at dusk. The blooms thrive for one glorious night, then are gone, leaving others to open beside their droopy leftovers.
I sighed in awe at the sight before me and the turn my day had now taken. I shut off the hose and stood a long time in the garden, feeling nothing but gratitude for all I had and, in particular, for the gift this flower had given me.
I finally made my way home, no longer worried about all my commitments. They'd get done - or not. Instead, I called Merl in Colorado, and described my experience. He told me it sounded a whole lot better than the inside of a lousy conference center, even one in Colorado, and that made me feel better too.
"Well, Ida Mae, I believe you've been 'led down the primrose path,'" he said with a laugh as he said goodbye.
That got me to thinking about the expression, so I looked it up. Shakespeare used it to mean an easy path that actually ended in calamity. But another definition just means a path of ease or pleasure. I liked that one better. Life is so often filled with bumps and briars, I think I'll take the easy path when I can. Otherwise I might just miss those blossoms opening up right in front of my face.
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