This spring I planted like 100 daisies.
Outside of my office are brick built-in, building-adjacent, planting boxes. A few years ago, I decided I was sick of them being used as ash trays and have attempted to plant various flowers with various success.
There was the year of the gladiolas that another staff member thought were weeds and pulled out. There was the year the daffodils grew in one box and not in the other. There was the year with the small red flowers that grew up like a bushy weed…they were colorful, but more green-tangled-stem than flower and not quite as adorning as I would have liked.
This year, as my tulips came up in the front bed, I decided I again wanted to try flowers in the long side bed. Perhaps a little less…tangled. I found a package of colored daisy seeds promising small, bright petals. I love daisies. I thought they would be exactly the pop of color I was hoping for, so I bought two envelopes and waited.
I waited because I live in northern Michigan and even though the tulips had begun to pop, I knew we weren’t nearly over winter.
There was a day in mid-May where I felt adequately in the clear. I added fresh soil to the bed and planted two envelopes of daisies systematically along the stretch. Since last year’s busy weeds with flower buds game up in mass, I had high expectations.
I watered.
I waited.
Two green shoots came up.
I watched in anticipation.
One of the shoots died.
Nothing.
It did get a little cold again. Not quite frost-on-the-ground cold, but definitely a couple nights where we sat on the freezing line. Maybe I got ahead of myself. Maybe my daisies got too cold and froze and died. But now it was almost June, and the cold was officially done.
So, I bought two more envelopes of daisies.
As I planted them, I thought I saw another green shoot. “Best-worst-case scenario at this point, my previous seeds just needed more time and now I’ll have just a field of red and orange and yellow and pink daisies…”
My one remaining flower from the first planting continued to grow.
Slowly.
I continued to water.
Faithfully.
Two green shoots came up.
And have continued to come up.
That’s it.
I planted no less than 100 daisy seeds.
I grew three flowers.
And I’ll be real honest – one of those isn’t even a daisy!
I planted 100 daises to grow three*.
*Scratch that – two. (I have no idea what the third plant is, I’m just glad it tried).
Two daisies.
I wondered first what I did wrong. That’s a pretty natural default to me. If something I did isn’t living up to what it is supposed to be, then obviously I failed. I didn’t choose the right potting soil. I didn’t choose the right seeds. I planted too early or too late. I watered too much or not enough. The seeds were too shallow or too deep or something else completely in my control.
Or not.
I did what I know how to do in a way that has been successful before. And I failed.
Or not.
Because three flowers grew. It wasn’t 50 or 100. 3% with a 33% identity crisis is a really terrible set of odds.
But it’s not zero.
So, I wondered next about investment. About who gets to decide if investment is too much or not enough. Who gets to decide what investment is worth?
Were two daisies and a stray worth remembering to water? Were they worth the fresh soil and the repeat attempts? Were they worth continuing to care for when I realized that of 100 daisies, I would only be caring for 3?
And clearly, in this case, the determiner of worth was me.
Perhaps because I needed it for me. To prove I hadn’t completely failed.
Perhaps because I had failed the other 97, and it seemed cruel to intentionally fail the other three.
Perhaps because part of me was hoping eventually some of the other 97 would try a little bit.
Perhaps because despite the fact they were the only three to grow made them underdogs worth rooting for…
Or, perhaps, because once they started popping up strong and green, there was something about the very fact they existed which demanded their worthiness.
Planting 100 daisies and getting three(ish), felt like a metaphor for life. Maybe my own. For how much we give and how little we get back. For often great efforts appear to end in massive failure. It felt like a late blooming representation of the number of times lived above and beyond without thanks; beyond capacity without recognition. It felt like every best intended attempt at connection without reciprocity and a hustle for worthiness that is always a hustle and rarely a confirmation of worth. It felt like the living, growing, picture of “your best is never enough” and “it probably doesn’t matter”.
But the daisies started to bloom this week. My third unknown plant looks like it might try. And maybe for them it is enough. Maybe for those three daisies* it does matter. Maybe the very fact something, someone, exists demands us to acknowledge its worth.
