Hepatica Are Blooming

Hepatica are blooming in the woods. This first wildflower pokes out of a carpet of dead leaves to dance in the spring breeze.

I have 1 little patch of them in my 10 acres. I have never seen any in my neighbors' surrounding 75 acres.

I have something you don't have. Nah-nah-nah nah-nah-nah.

How we long to take credit for situations as if they belonged to us. How we love to bolster I/me/mine.

But does the hepatica "belong" to me? It was there when i moved here 33 years ago, and with luck, it will probably be there when i die. Does that make it mine?

How we take pride in our bodies:

• I didn't need reading glasses until i was 56.
• I weigh the same as i did in high school.*
• When i bend over, my hands touch the floor.

 We say these things as if we controlled our bodies, but control doesn't work like that. Yes, we can set up some lifestyle conditions--a good diet, exercise, preventive maintenance--but unexpected things happen. That's when we know, that really, we are not in control.

Meanwhile, hepatica are blooming in the woods, spring is happening, and we are alive in such bodies as we have.


*  Not me! But i've heard a friend say this.