When I was a child, my Scottish mother would refer to the beautiful, huge flowering bushes in our yard as “rhoddies.”
As a result, I began to believe these plants were called “rho-DEE-dendrons.” You can imagine my shock when I later understood that they are, in fact, “rho-DOH-dendrons” — a far less fantastical and playful moniker, if you ask me.
So serious, the rhododendron.
I bring this up as my own rhoddies begin to burst forth their blooms one by one: a shifting kaleidoscope of colour dotting my yard.
There is even a very large deep purple rhoddie tucked in the woods, planted, I assume, by a settler long moved on. It fills me with thoughts of place and home, of resilience and self-sufficiency.
I am not a gardener, and these plants just say, “You want me here? Cool. I’m good.” They are so sure of their place, even the deer stay away.
I love the rhoddie.
But if I was wrong and yet so sure about the name of this plant, what else might I have been thinking is true since childhood that is anything but?
The probing needed to truly answer that question is perhaps too much for these pages.
But I invite you to ponder it within yourself. We sense balance internally, and when something is off, we perceive that on some level.
What erroneous fact or truth might you be holding that is throwing you off, even ever so slightly? The best way to answer such questions is to sit quietly and observe everything around you.
It’s best done in nature, and not at the end of a gold-gilded casino pier (as some other Haida Gwaii News columnists might suggest).
Give yourself a moment to really see what is around you — the berries are coming, the sea asparagus is halfway there, the strawberries are close.
Most exciting of all, our local ravens have welcomed three new troublemakers into our midst.
I have unimaginatively nicknamed our local raven pair Simon and Simone. Simon is missing a wing feather and so I always know who he is.
Just before the birth of the chicks, you only see Simon when he tussles with eagles that get too close, or when he’s foraging for him and his mate.
And then suddenly there’s a bunch of chicks. They squawk just like my teenagers do when I ask them to clean their rooms.
Their caws crackle and break, and they always seem a little goofy.
When the whole family goes to the beach, Simon and Simone watch on, I believe, with the same exhaustion, love and benevolence I felt when my own young played on the same beach.
Of course Simon and Simone get to chase off their offspring in a matter of months, and mine stick around for years.
But watching the ravens reminds me what’s to come, how quickly we can learn, and how much things always, always change.
Send me your thoughts on whether we should petition for a rhododendron to rhoddiedendron name change: [email protected].