I Will Still Plant My Daffodil Bulbs

For someone who loves daffodils, the beautiful flowers of Spring are preceded by strategic planning in Fall. First, you have to think about Spring flowers at a time of year when you’re normally thinking about whether you want to carve a happy face or a scary face on your pumpkin. Or a scared face! There’s always room for a Jack-O-Lantern that is frightened by the other pumpkins, or the trick-or-treaters walking up your sidewalk, or perhaps by the fact that it was carved two weeks before Halloween and is acutely aware of it’s own sagging descent into mortality.

Next, unless you want to buy your bulbs at the local super home improvement store and run the risk of getting flowers that were born and raised somewhere sketchy like Des Moines, you need to think in advance to order them from a place with a very Dutch sounding name. This year I chose to order from “K. van Bourgondien” because there is zero chance I’ll ever be able to pronounce that correctly, so it must be authentic. Also, they send me a million marketing e-mails a week, and I thought by ordering from them maybe they would stop. I was wrong. Apparently they know I still read every single e-mail and I’m on the fence to order some “snowdrop” bulbs. But they don’t ever promote tulips to me, because apparently they’ve read my Fancy Badass blog post and know I consider tulips the unreliable drunk uncle of the flower bed… maybe they’ll show up for Easter Brunch, maybe they won’t.

This year I ordered 450 daffodil bulbs from K. van Bourgondien (what does the “K” even stand for… why do you put an abbreviated initial at the front of your name?) to plant in my back and front yard — traditional yellow trumpets for the back where there is more sunlight, and a shade variety for the front. Also, “yard” is a bit of a misnomer when you live on the side of a mountain and it’s more of a rugged hill covered in “soil” that is primarily rocks and clay. It’s tough sledding out there to dig holes, add good soil and bulbs, and cover with more good soil.

When I first ordered the bulbs I had this vision of me using my stand-up bulb planting tool contraption to easily dig a core hole, reaching into a bag of bulbs on my hip and casually dropping in bulb after bulb all around my property like a modern Johnny Appleseed before going inside to watch maybe one out of the twenty Tik Tok videos my wife has forwarded me. Instead, the stand-up bulb planting device broke on the very first [expletive deleted] hole and I’ve resorted to a shovel and a trowel and an electric drill outfitted with a bit designed to drill big circular holes in wooden doors. No, the drill doesn’t work very well at all, but it sure makes me feel like a man when I’m kneeling over a rocky spot on my front hill using a corded power tool to make grinding noises in the earth while my neighbors walk by and try not to look like they are actively recording a Tik Tok video of me at that very moment. Two bulbs planted, 448 to go.

Admittedly, 450 bulbs is a bit of a daunting number even if the soil were as lush as a suburban book club, but as my wife will tell you about my approach to life, there’s nothing worth doing that can’t be overdone. Like that time I chocolate-dipped every single appetizer for a party. Potato chip? Dip it! Melon wrapped in prosciutto? Dip it!

As I’m planting the bulbs there’s a quote that often runs through my head: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” And then I mentally replace “apple tree” with “daffodil bulbs” and happily continue grinding rocks with my electric drill.

Initially I thought this apple tree quote was attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr., and when I looked it up a few weeks ago to make sure I was phrasing it correctly in my head, I found that it’s alternatively attributed to 1) Martin Luther King, Jr., 2) the theologian / reformer Martin Luther (from the 1500s), and 3) a priest named Karl Lotz in 1944. The common theme here is your names have to begin with L or K to be considered as quote-worthy.

Regardless of who actually originated the quote, there’s no shortage of attributions and interpretations of the line. One that I stumbled across in my Google search actually surprised me, the author saying that the quote means “don’t worry about tomorrow, live for today.”

If you know anything about the personality type methodology known as the Enneagram or the Nine Types (I recommend following Sarajane Case’s @enneagramandcoffee on Instagram for great insight) you’ll know that as a Type 7 I am very prone to living for today. Type Seven is the adventurer, the enthusiast, the epicure, and we love to do and appreciate the fun things in life… traveling, eating amazing meals, riding rollercoasters again and again and again! We’re happy and excited and we know it clap our hands!

Ordinarily I would read “don’t worry about tomorrow, live for today” and think THAT IS AWESOME! And yet, if there’s anything my work with porcelain has taught me it’s that great experiences take time and planning and a vision for what can be.

So I admit to being confused on how that one guy interpreted the “I will still plant my apple tree” as a “live for today” aphorism, because I definitely see the quote as one of hope for tomorrow, and letting that hope drive your actions today. It’s planting the seed — or the bulb — of hope that tomorrow will actually be a brighter day.

I think that’s an especially appropriate thought during this incredibly strange and trying year in which everything seems to have gone to pieces. Just when we think it couldn’t get any crazier — surprise! — it’s STILL 2020 and there’s more crazy for everyone. YOU get some crazy and YOU get some crazy and WE ALL get some crazy.

And that’s part of what drives me as I’m drilling into the roots and rocks and clay and tucking a small daffodil bulb into the ground like a squirrel burying a nut… even if the world is still going to pieces today, I plant my bulb and think about how beautiful that daffodil will be next Spring and every year thereafter.

Three bulbs planted, 447 to go.