The bulbs we bury

I planted 1000 bulbs recently. In heavy wet clay. It was cold, muddy work. All I had to show for some backbreaking hours was muddier, lumpier grass and very grubby fingernails.  The first half an hour was quite fun - I was outside, it was a new project, nothing ached yet. But tedium wore on, as did my joints and blistered palms: the ground seemed to get harder the more I worked, and nothing much actually happened. 

Now, after that hard work, I wait. And I hope. The bulbs now are doing their work, deep underground. I have to exercise patience until I see what will flower in the spring. I confess that patience is very far from a super strength of mine.

Planting bulbs seems the definition of delayed gratification: effort without guarantee of reward.  Making personal change can feel like this - whether it is mindset, careers or behaviours. Initial motivation turns to hard graft, repetition and consistency is boringly necessary, and you put a whole lot of energy and effort into the world, without the assurance of return. 

But spring will come, and so will Wordsworth’s hosts of flowers. So in this waiting phase, I’m trying to reframe my bulb planting into that of tucking future promises under the dark duvet of the earth. A gift from my present self to my future. Not the frenzied unwrapping of a surprise from under the tree, but a more sustainable, quieter change that will appear after the long winter, when I most need it. 

With that, I’m conscious of the little bulbs of personal promise that I am burying for myself in these darker, colder months - underneath the frenzy of activity that accompanies this time of year: a quieter, slower energy filled with promise. 

What bulbs are you burying this winter?