Every year for my birthday, my brother-in-law Randy, sends me flowers.  I look forward to it because my birthday is the day before Valentine’s Day.  I can’t say I get a lot of flowers around my ‘ole bday.  Too pricey.  He and Greg made a deal years ago: Randy sends me birthday flowers, and Greg gets me flowers the rest of the year.  I see the whole thing as a win-win for Lori.

This year’s tulips were especially vibrant.  As I was capturing them with my Polaroid (just joking, I use a Nikon D70 with a SB-400 flash…as if I have ANY idea what any of that means…ask Greg), I realized that these tulips are a proxy for the human condition.

You think that when you see a tulip wrapped tight, just admiring the outside of it, you’ve seen the best that tulip has to offer.  After all, when you think of tulips, you think of them with their petals closed.  I was thrilled when this purple beauty opened to show there is always more beauty on the inside.  Same is true with most every person I know.

Tulips will always reach for sunlight, just as a sunflower will follow the sun throughout the day.  These flowers are on my mantle, about 2 feet from the nearest window.  Look at how the brilliant yellow petals unfurled, reaching, STRETCHING, trying to pull every last centimeter possible out of its height to reach the sun beams that streak across my living room.  Isn’t it the human condition to push ourselves, always striving for a moment in the sun?  While I was so busy running between raindrops last year, I doubt I would have even noticed the tulips on their journey towards the light.  THIS year, I’ve gotten a great deal of pleasure watching my birthday flowers evolve.

Just when I thought the wild and bold yellow tulips would steal the show, this delicate pink tulip snuck up from behind and grabbed the sun, even using the yellow petals to prop itself up!  When you think you’ve got the quietest and most demure people figured out, they prove to be the smartest and hardiest of the bunch.

Don’t you just love fresh flowers?!