Over the past two months, since January 29, my orchid has been blooming, slowly, or perhaps it would say, on its own timeline. In the orchid world, I would imagine, 12 blooms are rather a feat, an effort, a journey that is worth its gradual culmination.

With every new bloom, I have taken at least one picture, and often more, trying to capture the orchid’s angles, the way the petals crash into and crowd one another as if trying to create the illusion of one singular, more imposing flower. A flower with tiny flecks of light that sneak through the gaps between the petals.

I would like to tell you I know the Latin and English names of each of my plants, that I know the exact light in which they thrive, that I can always fix yellowing leaves and wilting branches. But, I am simply lucky—I have a gift for keeping plants alive, inexplicably. I water my collection every weekend, eyeing it as I go, hoping I’ve accurately intuited from the plants what they need, how much they need.

Perhaps, that is what happened with the orchid, and I simply got the watering schedule and ratio just right for it. But perhaps, beautiful things just sometimes happen, and are ultimately out of my control. Or, two things can be true at the same time.

Part of me wants to be able to explain, to defend, everything, especially as an attorney. To “Well, actually” that which may never have a clear explanation, that which, perhaps, does not need one.

So, I have decided that the orchid bloomed for nine weeks to start the year perhaps because it decided it was time, perhaps because it decided the world is bad enough right now but damn it, beauty can and does still exist. Perhaps it was the exact biological combination of light and water and humidity.

I don’t know, but the orchid does. And I find that soothing, grounding, anchoring, in a world that is anything but.