“Bloom where you are planted.”
So said the sign that hung over Ryan Berg’s stove. The rectangular wooden plaque was replete with painted red poppies, the shamrock green stems of which formed the letters. It was the only real splotch of color in the entire kitchen, or, for that matter, most of Ryan’s Portland, Oregon, apartment. His was an exercise in minimalist living.
Ryan opened his fridge and pulled out a bottle of microbrew, popped the top, and stood leaning against his kitchen counter. He took a drink of the pale ale and examined the sign some more, thinking on its meaning.
For the last twenty years after leaving college he had had sales jobs, crisscrossing the country with instrument sales and representing one large biotech company after another. He was good at it. Made lots of sales. Won accolades, in fact. But it meant that he was never at home for more than a week or two at a time, and he moved apartments at least once every couple years.
About a decade ago, Ryan’s grandmother Berg had painted the sign for him and presented it to him at Christmas, one of the few years where he actually spent the holiday with family back at the “old family homestead” in the little hamlet of Crocker, Missouri, population 1,100, where his family had been rooted since the founding of the town in 1869. The blip on the map was known for its history with the railroad, but not much else. After spending his youth with little to do in a town with few friends, he basically fled the place when he went off to college and rarely went back. That was probably why his grandma had given him the sign. After all those generations of Bergs had been “planted” and “bloomed” in the little town, Ryan was the odd one out for leaving. Maybe she hoped he would come back and plant himself?
Ryan, for one, had seen it more as “withering.”
“Thanks, Grandma,” he’d said, and smacked a kiss on her cheek. She’d been so pleased with it all.
“Now you hang it up in your kitchen!” she’d said, waggling a finger at him. “Right up over your stove. Right where you’ll see it when your wife cooks your meals and you kiss her for her fine cooking!” To Grandma, no room in the house symbolized love for the family more than the kitchen.
He did as she said, of course. Everywhere he moved, it was the first thing he hung, right up over the stove – even long after she’d passed away, following her husband a year after he’d died. Both of them were now buried in the family plot in Antioch Cemetery, just outside of Crocker. Literally planted where they’d bloomed, he thought grimly, then felt a bit ashamed for the private joke.
He took another swig of his ale. What a disappointment I would be to her today, he thought. Almost 40 years old and never married. Never had kids. Never “settled down.” And never really returned to Crocker for more than a visit. Unlike his older sister, Emily, who now lived in their grandparents’ place.
“The old family homestead” was still in the family, at least. Emily had a blue-collar husband and four children, with a fifth on the way, no less. Attended church every Sunday. Active in the PTA. The stereotypic housewife. In every way it was as if she were living up to Grandma’s ideal. Certainly more than their own mom, a woman who tried to live up to the seemingly impossible pressure of being breadwinner, housemaker, mother, and wife, all in one, like most every woman of her generation. His sister’s definition of “success” was much different from his. But she seemed a lot happier.
His stove was rarely warm. Most of his meals were cooked in the microwave or ordered out. Hell, who was he kidding? Most of them were purchased on the run, through drive throughs in whatever town he was selling in, ordered from a hotel room, or eaten in a rush between flights at a drastically overpriced airport restaurant. And the closest thing he had to a wife was a couple girlfriends he hooked up with from time to time. And family? Well, he facetimed with a few of them once in a while. “Liked” a post here or there on Instagram or Facebook. But even his sister’s kids barely knew him. Their Uncle Ryan was a face on a phone screen that they said “hi” to, and only because their mom told them to, before returning to Minecraft.
Some days he woke up in a hotel room on his sales trips and couldn’t remember what city or state he was in. The hotels all started to blur together after a while. The airports, too. All of his friends were just co-workers, and he hardly saw them, either. Where was it all headed? Where would it lead in five, ten, or twenty years? Coming home to his apartment seemed hollow anymore without someone to greet him. With his nomadic lifestyle, he couldn’t even keep a pet.
Ryan sighed, went to his desk, and opened his laptop. Called up a travel booking site. Clicked on a flight to St. Louis.
It was time to go back to that little blip in Missouri.
Maybe… just maybe… he hadn’t quite bloomed yet.
Jason’s latest poetry collection is called Guide Me, O River and is available here.
Learn more about Jason on our Contributor’s Page.
(Photo: Stitchbrovia)
- Bloom by Jason Kilgore - January 27, 2022