What the Tulips Taught Me About Hope

I'm not gonna lie to you, the last 2 weeks have been rough. I'm not immune to the emotional toll of political chaos. How can I offer my clients solace when my nervous system is just as frayed?

I wonder if my kid's college will lose critical funding for the research they want to do as an undergrad. Will we recoup the unnecessary losses to our retirement savings? And I just learned that someone I know raising a trans kid in a red state has made the heart-wrenching decision to leave the country.

When things are spinning in my mind, I respond with concrete tasks: mopping the floor, pulling weeds, or going for a walk. Currently, I am responding with small actions relative to the gravity of world events. Of course, these are not the only things I am doing nor would I ever suggest that they resolve the larger issues at hand. Instead, I'm offering some actionable items that are keeping me grounded in the present and offer me some perspective on my very real ability to effect change, even now.

Office bouquet

Grounding Tip #1: I resumed buying myself flowers. They sit on my desk and remind me of beauty. They are my visual reminder that I matter and that there are small things that I can do to immediately, albeit temporarily, brighten my world. 

Grounding Tip #2: I’ve also been tending to the tulips appearing in my garden from bulbs I planted in the fall. Bulbs I planted while still hopeful for a different presidential outcome. Election results and many executive orders later, the tulips are bursting forth nonetheless, responding to spring like they always do.

The tender shoots remind me that the seasons pass and that nature has a cycle of its own, nonpartisan and undeterred though not without threat. They need my consistent efforts of scattering coffee grounds and red chili flakes at their base. This deters the bunnies who will eat them, given the chance. 

On more mornings than not for the past week, I have made my coffee, not just to enjoy the rich brew, but to scatter the fresh coffee grounds around the tulips breaking the soil. My efforts are paying off. As the shoots grow taller and more of them appear, the dream of a tulip bed has been replaced by confidence that it will be so, reminding me that my dreams of flowers and efforts to realize them are not in vain.

Those hopes may take months or years to germinate, sometimes underground and unseen, but they grow nonetheless. They need oversight and a little protection from external threats so that their roots can take hold and they can grow strong enough to withstand the challenges. But eventually, on their own terms, in their own time, they break through and bloom.