Metaphors

As a writer, I’ve never really liked metaphors–or similies for that matter–and I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m not clever enough to come up with them or that they feel contrived. Most things, I think, are what they are and don’t compare well to something else. I’m not ever sure why one would need to compare things, anyway. Does the comparison help you to understand the thing observed better? Like I said, contrived.

Spring sneaked up on me, and I wasn’t paying attention until it was full on summer. That’s when I saw that my crepe myrtle bush–the one that got chopped in half during Hurricane Helene last September and had its dead half hacked off and thrown with no mercey on the burn pile. In that moment, I debated sawing off the half clinging crookedly to its little section of earth and decided to simply trim it back and see what happened.

Here’s what happened: it bloomed. And bloomed some more. Even the little straggly parts near the bottom of the poor thing have beautiful purple flowers on them. Beat all to hell by nature–a freaking tree fell on it–broken in half, mind you, reduced to a couple of crooked sticks, and it bloomed. I took one look at it and thought, If that’s not a metaphor for my life, I don’t know what is.

All I want to say about that is that my life right now looks nothing like what I thought it would. Can I leave it at that?

But I’m still blooming. Me and my crepe myrtle.