For weeks now, I’ve been eyeing the magnolia trees in my neighborhood. Their leaves, a deep waxy green, slowly became the backdrop for the gracefully sprawling ivory flowers I associate so strongly with the South. I think of Charleston, and I think of magnolias. I think of Mississippi, and I think of magnolias. Even their scent is quintessentially Southern.

So it’s been very hard for me to be patient for my own magnolia trees to swell with blossoms. My trees, you see, are young.  They’re under twenty feet tall and their branches only stretch as wide as a compact car.

But being young and small has not stopped the other magnolia trees in our neighborhood from blooming richly. There’s one tree in particular — a spindly little thing right by the back entrance gate, standing flush against a brick wall — that is a riot of soft ivory. It’s adorned with blossoms from its lowest branch to its highest, and each time I drive home, I notice how spectacularly luminous and translucent magnolia petals are when they’re backlit by gorgeous Florida sunshine. And I keep thinking how nice it will be when my yard looks that way, too.

The other day I went out to check my magnolia trees, and I wanted to do a little victory dance right there in the side yard when I found the fuzzy bulbs that will eventually peal open like bananas to spill magnolia blossoms into the daylight. I went outside again today, hoping some would have begun the transformation. They hadn’t.But as I searched the two trees’ branches, I found something else. While less aesthetically pleasing than a perfectly formed flower, it was no less awe-inspiring. So much work and care had gone into this.Surely there is a lesson this.

I’m impatient and headstrong, and yet somehow manage to be hesitant and indecisive, too. I rush from one blessing to the next while always scanning the horizon for the ones I can’t yet see. They’ll be there. They’ll unfold like a magnolia, once they’ve had time to develop full fragrance and color and texture and strength.

~ Laura