A Blank Page

Here I am, up since 4:15, because I'm too excited to sleep. Show Season starts today, with the Kitsap County Dahlia Show hosting, at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds. Going to sleep was difficult, as visions of green centers and drooping back petals danced through my head but I finally dropped off around 11:00 or so. I swear this feels just like Christmas, and no one is more surprised than I am that this is happening to me. When I was growing up, this is what my DAD did.....this was HIS life....this was what consumed HIM....not ME! I was talking to Mom yesterday, and she was commenting on how proud he would be that I am so involved in the growing and showing of dahlias, and I remembered how unlikely it was that that little blond-haired girl with the skinned-up knees would ever CHOOSE to spend hours a day in a garden! Dad certainly put us to work, mostly as a weeding crew, and we even had our own little "shrub nurseries," where us kids would plant and manage a few rows of mugho pines, cypress, junipers and arborvitae, which we would then sell to raise money for school clothes. But we really didn't get involved with the dahlias, even though they dominated our home garden. And my experience with the other work in the garden only impressed on me even more deeply how much I hated that kind of work. Oh, the innocence of youth, when ignorance was bliss. I've been bitten by the bug, and have been forever changed. When Dad could no longer walk very well, he spent much of his life on his little power scooter, rolling all over town to visit his gardens and schmooze with people at neighborhood businesses. It worked pretty well, except to plant and tend the dahlias. My sisters Debbie and Vicki and I became Dad's hands and feet, digging, pinching, topping, weeding, tying up and deadheading. He taught us so many things those last few years of his life, things I keep remembering in bits and pieces as I move through my own evolution as a dahlia grower. He has so much experience, so much wisdom but it was the passion that captured me most. He so loved this flower, and he never stopped learning and adjusting, even when moving from the perfect growing environment of Western Washington to the harsh, inhospitable heat and searing sun of North Central Washington. He managed to have beautiful gardens all the way through his last season in 2006. That year, he held court at the show in the Wenatchee Valley Mall, exhibiting and showing winning blooms, and receiving special recognition for his last seedling, Cascade Myrt. By November of that year, we had dug and divided the tubers, putting them to bed in my dark cool crawlspace for yet another year, and shortly after that was done, Dad declared that he had the best kids, the best family, the best work and the best life....and a few minutes later, he was gone. He left us with a legacy that nobody can ever take from us, and a challenge to keep being the best we can be, no matter what we are doing....to keep raising the bar. In the past couple months, I've become familiar with a song that my daughter Abby shared with me. It is called "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. You might think that the words of this song are most suited to young people just starting out in life. However, I believe it speaks to people of any age. It goes like this: "I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined. I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned. Staring at the blank page before you, open up the dirty window, let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find. Reaching for something in the distance, so close you can almost taste it... Release your inhibitions! Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you, Only you can let it in. No one else, no one else can speak the words on your lips, Drench yourself in words unspoken, Live your life with arms wide open, Today is where your book begins... The rest is still unwritten." It occurred to me that no matter how old I am, or what I did or liked when I was younger, I am still unwritten. I can change my story by changing the direction in which I walk, I can redefine myself in any number of ways. We are never finished - we are all works in progress, and if there is something that you've always wanted to do, or even, as in my case, something great that you never thought you'd do, TODAY is the day you can start putting pen to paper and scratching out the first words that will become your autobiography. I'll see you in Kitsap County later this weekend.....and you'll all be part of the next chapter!