Flowers have a color complexity that is often ignored until one finds themselves trying to replicate one on the page. All at once they are delicate yet vibrant. Translucent, yet rich with texture and shadow.
A yellow tulip appeared in my flower bed this morning. I write that sentence as if I didn’t plant a bulb there many years ago and tend to a crop of flowers every year, weeding and watching and watering when necessary. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a pleasant surprise to see the color emerge from the ground each spring after a long, cold winter when that same flower bed was a pillow of white and cold for so many months.
As I write this the city where I live is opening for business like a tentative spring flower: a lone tulip is a yet-to-be-weeded flower bed is an apt metaphor, actually. While the media plays the “back to business” story as if everything is well on it’s way to back to normal, the world is anything but. Little has changed since we locked down. The virus is still a threat. The economy is still in the tank. Most people will not rush out into the spring air and open their delicate embrace to an uncertain risk.