A Word for Wednesday: Blossom (A Series of Posts about Words)

When I was a junior in high school one of my classes was a creative writing class focused exclusively on poetry. I had no patience for poetry, I'm afraid to say. After all, I believed that words are best when they are in the good company of many other words. But after a semester (and then two more) of living in poetry, I learned to cherish good words. I'd like to start sharing some of them with you on this blog.


Word for Today: Blossom

Definition: According to our denotation friends (the pages of a dictionary), blossom means either the bloom on a flowering plant - an apple blossom or orange blossom. Merriam Webster also tells me that it means, "the state of bearing flowers." We need synonyms that sing about springtime, flowering, blooming. The verb part is the blooming, the growing. For blossom, we need spring words. 


Blossom, noun. The fresh face scrubbed clean of a hard day's work. When I step out of the shower and open my eyes, feel the cool air soothe my new warm skin. It's that just-peeled feeling when you've washed off the troubles, the missed moments, the trying, frustrating, heavy moments. 


Blossom, noun. The smell of that freshly gathered backyard bouquet. When I was little I frolicked through my backyard as if it was the grand mysterious forest and the widest plains. I sang to myself, told myself the myths and the legends that scramble over rocks in the garden and hide behind old pear trees. I scampered through worlds, each one a retelling of the best stories, of the oldest stories. I used to be Snow White and my younger brother was "one of the little men" and Mom would have to wake me up. But when I woke up I was just me, and I would say, chipper as a sunflower - "Howya doing!?" That is blossom life, fresh and real and grass-stained. 

Blossom, verb. To come into the fullness of beginning. I'm here now, I think, so much of me emerging and retreating and blooming. I thought it might unravel when I returned from a here that felt so real, so hopeful, so new. I thought blossoming could only happen in Italy and DC and far away from home. But look! I want to tell myself. Look! 

You bloom here. And we all bloom in our present places, we are all always at the beginning of bearing flowers. Imagine that - everywhere we go, we can bear flowers, gather a precious bouquet into our hands and make it lovely and luscious and give it freely as a gift. I blossom here. 


Blossom, verb. My word for the year with my dear friend is emergence. The other one I chose in my heart was chrysalis. Blossom is like that word - chrysalis - a beautiful one to roll around your vocal chords and whisper into the ears of those friends who are in hard places. Blossom is emergence, the promise of fuller harvest, of perhaps one day even eternal harvest. Blossoming is delicate work, fragile as cocoons spun around our new selves. And we take time to grow, our small acorn seed selves nestled deep within us, who must be nourished and nurtured and who require much patient love. Blossom the beginning of seeing that new self, that new beating breathtaking heart emerge from inside. 


Blossom is a word for the fragrance of new life. 

Blossom is a word to swallow deep and nurture.

Blossom is a word for joy at the beginning of things. 

Love,
Hilary