perennial

this is an orchid. i know it doesn't look like an orchid, but you'll have to trust me.

what's special about this orchid is that it has lived on my desk for about a year and a half now. and it's still alive.

the original bloom lasted for about a month after i purchased it, and though i had no hope of ever seeing it bloom again, the leaves remained green, so i left it in it's pot, sitting in a corner.  it stayed in that corner until november when we moved offices, and it was repositioned in a different corner, in a different cube.

in the time i have has this orchid, i have also had six other desk plants.  but i have discovered that when you are gone for days and weeks at a time, plants die.  and, when one would die, i would replace it.

i love the idea of something alive and green and oxygen producing in my otherwise sterile cubicle, but absence and neglect seemed an impossible challenge to overcome, and i had resigned myself to completing a regular pilgrimage to the home depot garden center.

and then, about two weeks ago, i noticed that this plant--which i had not watered in, oh, probably six months or so--had a new green leaf sprouting from it's center!  and what i once considered a hopeless case has become a bright spot in each of my work days.

there's an analogy here that i won't explore ad nauseam, but suffice it to say, this plant serves as a hopeful reminder that sometimes, despite absence and neglect, there remains the possibility of a new bloom.