Every year I look forward to a little spring event. It’s the appearance of a single Lady Slipper on a bank of our property in the woods of Craig County, Virginia. It’s that time of year and for the last three weeks we’ve hopped on the four-wheeler and headed out in hopes of seeing that single pink jewel that grows in the middle of some thorny vines. And for the third time we’ve come up empty. We can’t find it. I’m worried because the power company came through and killed a broad path of foliage right next to where she blooms. Or was it right over where she blooms? I don’t know.
Why do I like that Lady Slipper so much I wonder. What does it matter to me if she shows up again? Well, for one thing the Lady Slipper is Minnesota’s flower, and Minnesota is my home state, so we have a little kinship. Also, that wild orchid is a mystery, a wonder, a flower of fortitude. She blooms alone. None of her kind are anywhere in sight. And she is the only Lady Slipper I have ever seen in real life. How did she get there I always wonder? What is her story? I would love to know. Anyway, the last time we went to look I was feeling a little sad thinking that she would probably never come back.
It was dusk back at the cabin and we were lounging around watching TV, snacking, shooting the breeze. The weather was drizzly and we were all pretty tired when Jake surprised me by saying, “Do you want to take a ride out and see the flowers I found on Tub Run?” Tub Run is a road behind the cabin that Jake had jogged earlier that day. After my disappointment over the Lady Slipper he told me that he had seen some new purple blooms on Tub Run. “Sure,” I said.
I put on a Carhartt jacket, pulled the hood up and we headed into the drizzle. It was a nice ride on the four-wheeler; snaking our way through the forest on that gravelly road. Every here and there Jake would stop and point out what looked to me like small but spunky purple Irises. I was surprised. In all our rides up and down Tub Run, I had never seen them before. The Irises liked it on the steep bank of the road. They were getting their footing, even sort of taking off in spots. I took a picture. We had the best ride on Tub Run, getting a little wet, pointing out moss, talking about swollen creeks, deciding on an Iris to take home for my terrarium.
That night I was washing my face before bed. I was thinking about the day. A good day. I was thinking about the gone Lady Slipper and the new crop of Irises, sad on one hand happy on the other, when this verse came to mind. “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” I smiled. It was a great way to sum up the day’s flower hunt. It was great way to sum up some other things I was looking at, looking for, too. It was a good verse to go to sleep on. And, to wake up to.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV
Dana Huffman 