A meditation on ‘Adaptation’, by Sherida Deeprose

She is a wildflower, clothing the naked earth, covering it with her own brand of beauty, thrusting down into parched earth, seeking the rain’s drops below the surface. In the most unexpected places, she blooms. When no one is looking.

No coddled seedling nor hothouse flower wilting in drought, but an unstoppable weed. Harsh sun, flooding rains, rocky soil don’t deter her. She bursts up, resilient and hardy, adapting to this particular patch of earth. A nomad, she has floated in and put down her roots, thriving against all odds.

Wrestle with her, crush her underfoot, poison her, neglect her. Wrench her out and leave her for dead. Still, she will sprout her way up and out, springing—like a weed. Creativity is opportunistic, taking root in depleted soil. She soothes the bare patches of life, helps us find nurture in depths we avoid. She’s a wilder force than we can control. With routine, structure and technique we provide the garden, but the seeds we plant might not be the ones that bloom. We till the soil, let the seeds die, and wait. Most likely we’ll reap fruit we didn’t know we had sown—wanton seedlings rising from the compost of our lives.

One dew-sparkled morning she’ll surprise us with a blossom that intoxicates even the bees. We’ll cry out in delight, plucking the flower and blowing her seeds to the wind.

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Sherida Deeprose is a Canadian writer based in Zürich.