It's become a ritual for me. Every year on some bright May day I step out, pull on some garden gloves, and look up at the old bell pole by the kitchen door. I squint in the warm spring sun, and then I kneel down in the soil, take my old trowel and plant a circle of morning glories. Morning glories - those long, twining vines with their heart-shaped leaves and their lovely blue and purple blossoms.
I pat the seedlings in one by one, all around the pole; then I thread string around old nails I pounded in thirty years ago, and I carefully wind their little stems around the string. From that day forward, all summer long, they become my companions; I pass them every day, watching them march skyward day by day in wild abandon until they finally reach the top, their leaves bobbing in the sun.
There's something about morning glories that make me smile. They bring joy just by growing, just by being themselves. They're so determined! Those long stems reach out to catch and wind around anything and everything: the hoe carelessly left nearby, the flower basket hung at the top of the pole, the hanging rope, the clapper of the old bell, until whenever I ring it the leaves all rock and dance to the sound. Morning glories don't care about rules - they just love to grow.
The flowers come late; it's a close race between the blooms and the first frost, but usually by September there are a few blossoms nodding in the wind. They're one of my favorite things: that perfect blue of their blossoms, mirroring the summer sky, all the more precious because their days are so few.
Their time is almost over for this year, I'm afraid. A few bright, warm days, and then some night the air will turn cold, chilly winds will bring a killing frost, and morning will find them transformed into a mat of dead leaves, dark and limp. This year's beauty over. Sweet friends, here so briefly, then gone again.
As I get older, each season feels more precious. I'm more and more aware that any season could be my last. Was this my last morning glory summer?
I think today I'll take a little time to go out and say goodbye. To just stand in the bright sun and savor the sight of these cheerful friends who ask so little and are gone so soon. To really look at their blossoms gleaming in the sun, and the winding stems reaching out into the air. And then I'll ring the bell, one last time, and one last time they'll all bob and sway, and one last time they'll make me smile.
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