Late Bloomers By Margaret S. Hamilton

Full of optimism the first week of November, I made a special trip to a Cincinnati nursery that specialized in properly chilled amaryllis bulbs. This was the year I would have an amaryllis plant in full, glorious bloom for Christmas. I found a bright red container and potting soil in the garage, planted and watered the grapefruit-sized bulb, and placed it in the south-facing front hall.

           

And waited. How difficult could this be? I’d forced paperwhite narcissus bulbs with great success for years. A month later, in early December, a smidge of green pushed up from the bulb. The bulb was alive, starting to unleash its amazing power. By Christmas, the smidge was half an inch high, showing no inclination to send up stems and leaves, let alone flower buds. Disgusted, I watered it and left town for a week.

           

On New Year’s Day, the smidge stubbornly remained at the half-inch mark. I made a note on my calendar to give it one more week before returning it to the nursery, and focused on writing. The following week, I finally saw progress. Inches a day, first the stem and leaves, then the buds, and finally, a tantalizing week watching the buds burst into glorious “Double Dragon” bloom, a full ten weeks after I had planted the bulb. The flowers were seven inches across, double blossoms of vivid scarlet edged in white.

             

Just when I thought I had amaryllis growing under control, the main stalk supporting three blooms and two buds collapsed under its own weight. I cut it off and put it in a vase. Nothing, not even forcing an amaryllis bulb, goes according to plan.

The amaryllis bulb evokes launching my mystery-writing career, a half-inch at a time. After my youngest left for college, I settled down to write my first amateur sleuth mystery. I’ve marked the past four years with rejections, revisions, nasty comments, and acts of genuine kindness, freely offered. Supportive friends and editors. My first published stories and my first print publications. The bar continues to be set higher, with more expected of me. It’s tougher than anything else I’ve tackled, including raising three children.

But it’s my life, and with patience and tenacity, yielding results. Would I have the same plot ideas as an English major straight out of college? Probably not. I’ve lived all over the country, worked many jobs, known many individuals. Are my characters based on real people? A snatch of dialogue, a beautiful hair clasp, the death of a close friend. I mine past experiences and build characters in my mind. I created a small Ohio college town for my novels and stories, based on a similar town where we once lived. I worked in custom decorating sales management, and possessed enough knowledge of the industry to have my amateur sleuth to manage an interior design shop.

We have family ties to New Orleans. I know the city well enough to use it as a setting for some of my short stories.

The last of the amaryllis blossoms crumpled like damp tissue paper at the end of February. I will repot the bulb with its luxurious two-foot long leaves and follow the instructions for nurturing it the rest of the year, hoping for a reblooming next January.

Are you a late bloomer? Have you taken on a challenge, horticultural or otherwise, with satisfactory results or a struggle along the way?

Margaret Hamilton Turkevich, writing as Margaret S. Hamilton, has published short stories in the Darkhouse Destination: Mystery! Anthology and Kings River Life. She is revising the first two books in her amateur sleuth series, Lavender Cottage Interiors Mysteries, utilizing the same characters and setting as her short stories. https://margaretshamiltonblog.wordpress.com/

https://margaretshamilton.wordpress.com/