It’s a gorgeous spring day and I took a walk. On the way home, I spotted this beautiful white bush and I was puzzled. I had no idea that it was in my yard! But as I got closer to home, I could see that yes, it is in our yard. Standing there in all of its majesty, it greeted me.

I called for Rob to come downstairs so I could show it to him. I took my new phone and he took photos of it. Neither one of us could remember it ever blooming. To see it, we had to walk around to the side yard because it is hidden from our front yard.

A couple of years ago, I was telling my next-door neighbor about our Mountain Laurel. Bob and I had gone to the North Georgia mountains for a day trip. We stopped at a nursery that sold plants grown in the mountains. And so we bought a Mountain Laurel and another bush and planted them in the side yard. We also planted Solomon’s Shields that bloom every spring.

“You need to cut them back,” she insisted to me. She even did a bit of the pruning herself. And then I forgot all about it until today.

Earlier, Rob and I had been at the kitchen table as he showed me how to use my new phone. “You can even make videos and upload them,” he said. And I got excited. I quit making videos a while back. I had done them for five years and few ever saw them. But now, with the new phone, I will try making one again.

There is a parallel to this and it is that we are seldom allowed to see if we are in bloom or not. We generally feel decidedly unshowy and strive to put our best feet forward. But now I match the color of the Mountain Laurel’s bloom and I am so okay with that. I am blooming where I am planted with my feet in front of this gorgeous mountain lady. Rock on, ye rock of ages, rock on!