I’ve developed the habit of buying orchids from Lowes or Kroger when they hit the discount section. This means they are done blooming and look rough with wilting leaves that are torn or yellow. Most importantly it means they’re cheap and fall within my spending limits. A one to two dollar plant fits into my budget much better than a ten to twenty dollar plant.
The problem with buying abused orchids is that they are a fussy plant and difficult to nurse back to health. The light, humidity, and watering has to be just right. Even then, they are slow growers so months can pass before I have any idea if what I’m doing is working. I’ve only managed to get two of my rescued orchids to bloom again, and only one so far this year.
Orchid leaves are also not quite as pretty as some plants. They are a plain, deep green. Not like the fuzzy Purple Passion Plants that were all the craze just a few years ago or the deep green leaves with red and yellow veins of a Prayer Plant. Invest in an orchid and you’ll have a semi-unattractive plant that likes to send aerial roots outside its pot while taking up a bunch of space. For three-fourths of a year, this high maintenance plant will demand you run a humidifier, give the perfect amount of water, allow its roots to breathe, and clean its leaves to keep dust at bay.
And yet.
The first pink bloom opened a little over two weeks ago. It’ll stay vibrant and beautiful for many more weeks. A Purple Passion Plant has tiny orange flowers and a Prayer Plant has teensy white blooms–nowhere near as showy as an orchid’s bloom. The other plants’ beauty and glory is in their leaves; upfront and not requiring the patience and work an orchid does. Maybe the ugly duckling to graceful swan transformation orchids go through every year is why I like them, but it is definitely why I think my writing process most closely resembles the growth cycle of an orchid.
Lately, I’ve begun to think my writing needs to be rescued from the “discount section” of my journals. I make it artsy, I vent, I reflect on my life and creativity, but much like a plant in the discount section, it’s more likely to be trashed than it is to find a home or advance my goals.
Once I made the comparison, I couldn’t help but see the parallels between caring for orchids and my writing, more specifically, my novel. Writing is high maintenance, takes forever to bloom, and there’s no telling if what I’m doing will work until much further down the line. I’m fussy, reworking chapters again and again. I require inspiration and the right environment. The words won’t grow if I don’t water them properly with all the tips and tricks I’ve learned from how-to-write books.
And yet.
I keep going with the hope that one day the reward will come and it will be spectacular with the glow of achievement, like that of an orchid bloom, lasting for many weeks after.
Quote from The Symbiont:
The giant pile of clean clothes on the bed beside me beg to be folded. My morning pages journal is partially buried next to me under the pile. I can almost see my own words trying to crawl off its pages and onto my arm. If they reach me, they’ll inject me with sparkly purple gel ink. Or maybe pink.
I toss aside the journal. I don’t want to whine and write about my boring life. I want to write about heroes or at least something better than myself. I close my eyes and search for the words, the spark that will lead me from the darkness into the white of a fresh page. I slow my breathing, looking for the center.
Nothing comes.
Melissa Reynolds 
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