There is a wonderful conference each year at the American Church is Paris, called, "Bloom Where you are Planted." These days we never seem to be in Europe when it's held (in October), but I love the name of the conference and I would recommend it to anyone just moving to that wonderful city.
As I am married to an English gardener, that theme of just how we bloom in all our locations is a growing theme in my mind. Back in Surrey, England we have a Scottish neighbour who seems to be nurturing some heather out back. I am not sure the heather is that comfortable among the English flowers that the local English gardener is longing to see flourish; in what is supposed to be a communal garden. I look out the window from our high window and I do not this neighbouring multi-cultural garden flourishing, but a war of roses versus heather.
My own English Gardener is at the moment working in the heat of a Florida late morning (Florida gardens are to be attended to in the wee hours or late evening) and adding yet another plant. I am excited to see our Key Lime flourishing, and have enjoyed a few limes in refreshing afternoon drinks;but we continue to learn what truely blooms in this heat. We have a baby palm tree of the variety that WANTS to grow in this area, having replaced an exotic palm that never belonged on the Gulf of Mexico. The exotic drooped with every blight headed our way. The one meant to be here is the one that flourishes.
Not all of us are meant to be in the land of a birth passport, and some of us were born to have two or more passports...maybe we just need to check the soil and see if there are blooming possibilities.
