A New Leaf
the
patience
of
a new
leaf
is
the message
of
the moment
My older daughter’s living room has a bay window that overlooks broad, rough grass sloping down to the cul-de-sac. On the warm side of a large rock mid-way down, the annual yellow daffodils bloom by late April. Indoors, green-leafed plants fill the wide windowsill in a year-round garden, sharing greenery through the bare trees of autumn and the winter’s light snowfalls.
Recently, my daughter sent a sequence of photographs she had taken of the growth of the newest leaf on a plant that I didn’t remember seeing before. With my first look, I took a scrap of paper and wrote, “the patience.” At the time, I didn’t think about its meaning, but later I did.
Three large mature leaves are seen in the first photo. They are a glossy dark-green, a forest green. Their perimeters slightly curve away from the off-white main vein connecting each leaf’s stem to its outermost tip. And off that are smaller veins branching gently upward toward the perimeters, and even smaller veins branching off those. The stem of the newest leaf appears to attach to that of the mature leaf it lies on—how minute it must be. By the third and final photograph of the newest leaf’s growth, I discovered that my response, rather than being only to the horticulture of the plant, was my maternal awareness for how the newest leaf, while dependent on its attachment to the main stem, was asserting itself on its journey to maturity.
My realization is, “There is a replication in life of the journey from newness to maturity in many and various ways, that may, at times, unexpectedly offer awareness.