This morning, I was sitting on the front porch like I usually do, just after waking up. A little quiet, a little sun, nothing complicated. And while I was sitting there, I noticed something I had not seen the day before. Bright red blooms on our pomegranate tree. The kind you cannot miss, which is why I am pretty sure they showed up overnight.
That tree has been there for a while now. When we planted it, along with a handful of other fruit trees, we let each of the kids pick what they wanted. We call it an orchard, which is generous. It is five trees in the front yard, but they count. We bought them a couple years along already, thinking we might be getting a head start. Turns out, trees are not in a hurry just because you are.
There is that saying about planting trees. The best time was years ago. The next best time is today. Sounds great until you are three years in, watering something that has yet to give you a single thing back except shade and a little attitude. You plant it, you water it, you try to keep it alive through Texas heat and the occasional freeze, and mostly you just hope it is doing something underground.
This is our third spring with these trees, and this is the first time I have seen that pomegranate bloom. It might turn into fruit. It might not. We are all just going to wait and see. But it is the first sign that something is happening, and I will take it.
My mom used to tell me all the time, “Patience is a virtue.” She still says it to me. I did not enjoy hearing that then, and if I am being honest, I do not love it now either. But growing anything will humble you real quick. You cannot rush it, and no amount of checking on it is going to make it grow faster. I have tried.
Fruit trees are not usually the first thing people jump into. They take space, they take time, and they do not give you much to show for it in the beginning. But maybe that is part of the point. You learn to keep showing up anyway. Watering, tending, paying attention, even when there is nothing to harvest yet.
We do not know which of these trees will make it. Maybe all of them. Maybe just one stubborn overachiever. But we planted them anyway. The kids have their trees, we have something growing, and every now and then, you get a little reminder like a bright red bloom that says, “something is happening, even if you cannot see most of it.”
For me, today, that is enough to keep going.
From The Field: Not everything pays off right away. Plant it anyway, take care of it anyway, and let it do its work in its own time.