Blooming Out of Season

The other night I watched Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu skate with a kind of joy that brought me to tears.

She had stepped away from competitive skating at sixteen because her life had become nothing but pressure and performance. For two years she lived, explored, went to school, hung out with friends. And then she returned to the ice, with passion — choosing her own music, her own choreography, her own style. She came back on her own terms.

And this week, at age 20, she won gold.

But what struck me wasn’t the medal. It was her face — radiant, relaxed, laughing with freedom, full of joy.

I've been thinking a lot about that as I sit here on my porch this sunny Florida morning, looking with amazement at my 40-year-old Christmas cactus, blooming for the first time in years.

Not at Christmas. Not when it was “supposed” to. Late February.

For a long time it sat here looking leggy and mostly green. I'd wondered if its blooming days were behind it. Or if I had just neglected it too much.

But this winter something shifted. Cooler nights. A different location. A subtle change in conditions.

And now--cascades of bright pink blossoms.

It’s not compact or tidy. It’s not trying to hide the woody stems that show its age. It’s not blooming on the calendar’s schedule. It’s simply blooming because the conditions are finally right.

At nearly 76 years, I've been asking myself lately whether joy can still expand at this stage of my life. Whether it’s possible for me to lift the subtle “damper pedal” I have kept pressed for decades — living well, but muted. Safe. Measured. Appropriate. Careful.

Watching that young skater, and now seeing this cactus burst into color at the “wrong” time, I find myself asking different questions:

What if there is no deadline on joy? What if blooming is not something that belongs only to a particular season?

And what if the real question isn’t about timing or schedule or season, but about readiness — whether we feel safe enough, free enough, steady enough to allow ourselves to open?

This cactus didn’t bloom when the calendar said it should. It bloomed when it was ready.

And maybe that’s how it works for us, too.

We may have long seasons of conserving energy. Of surviving, or bracing. Of growing roots instead of flowers. From the outside it may look like nothing is happening.

But beneath the surface, something is preparing.

And one day — not on schedule, not as a result of any external expectation — color.

Maybe we don’t bloom when the calendar says we should. Maybe we open when the conditions are finally right.

Not because we failed to bloom “on time,” but because at last our roots are deep enough, our courage steady enough, our soul nourished enough—so that when we bloom, it won't be "late," or imperfect, or measured against rules or calendars or seasons.

It will simply be joy. Unmistakable, unmuted and unapologetic joy —on its own terms.

Looking at those blossoms spilling toward the floor this sunny morning in late February, I feel something opening in me.

Not regret for what has passed. Not longing for another season.

Just a quiet readiness that feels a lot like joy.