Rave: Periods of Dormancy
I found another rose-bush in our yard today, the second such discovery I’ve made in the last two years.

Before you jump to any conclusions about me and my husband’s fitness as land owners, I should tell you that we live on just under one and a half wooded acres that we refer to as the “nature conservancy.” Not quite the same as the city lot of our previous houses where we couldn’t miss even a new dandelion.

Also, we regularly turn up treasures left behind by the previous owners — random items like toilets,  bed frames, car parts, toys, bottles and cans, to name just a few.  Today, along with the rose, we discovered the metal springs from a bed (in a different place from where we found the frame), as well as several yards of rusty chicken wire and barbed wire fence.

Still, for someone who fancies herself a gardener, finding one rose was a bit of a shock. Finding two seems to be setting a pattern.

The weird thing is, both bushes were in parts of the yard we use on a regular basis, so it’s not like I wouldn’t have noticed them if they’d been there before.

No, both have been laying dormant for who knows how many years before re-emerging.

Last year, I couldn’t wait to see what kind of rose I’d found (a wild one, as it turned out). This year, I  wondered what had changed to make them reappear.

But I also thought about people and their talents, which can be as dormant as my roses until something stirs that gift back to life.

With me, it was — and I hate to admit it — menopause. After waking up one too many times with hot flashes, characters began popping into my head with a story to tell.

Finally, I gave in and started writing again, after many years spent enjoying fiction solely as a reader.

How about you? Have you ever discovered or re-discovered an interest or talent that was previously dormant? If so, perhaps you’d like to leave a comment telling us about it.

#4054 wild rose (カニナバラ) (Photo credit: Nemo’s great uncle)

I hope my new rose looks like this!