Almost Paradise

A cool breeze rippled across the patio where Samantha slumped over her laptop. Every day was the same – writing gardening, plant, and animal articles. When she began her career as a creative plant writer, she’d loved the learning, the writing, and the creative challenges of finding new angles on the topic.

But now, after fourteen years of writing plant care articles ad nauseum, she was ready to resign and return to some menial retail job or something, even if it meant she’d struggle financially.

Her best friend, Caroline, challenged her, though. “You make good money doing this. You love learning. You’re always spouting obnoxious plant and animal facts when we walk through the woods. You take flower walks every morning. You obviously still love plants and nature. And you love writing.” 

Caroline had paused and looked at her for a long moment, thinking, while Samantha gazed back in consternation. “Why don’t you try writing somewhere new? Maybe in your garden where you can feel the sunlight on your face and smell the flowers you prattle on incessantly about every time we drink tea?”

“Ouch.” Samantha rubbed her eyes and looked out at the brick patio she’d laid last year as one of her DIY writing projects. “Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt. I’m so sick and tired of every day being the same… At least I’d get some Vitamin D.”

Samantha had since spent three or four hours every workday out there writing, in the cooler part of the day, when the sun wasn’t blazing its hot trail across the level ground. And today, as she pondered the importance of timing for putting out hummingbird feeders in Arkansas, she felt that breeze and lifted her nostrils to breathe in the aroma of the last lilacs that edged the round patio.

Something sparkled in her soul. She took a sip of the fresh-squeezed limeade she’d brought out with her, and let her body linger in the sensations of sunlight, sweet fragrance, tangy flavor, and cool air on her skin. If a tree-covered mountain stood beyond her back gate or an ocean murmur could be heard in the wind, she’d found almost paradise.

As the wind picked up, whipping leaves of the nearby trees into a frenzy, she drifted back to her childhood home, just a three-minute walk from the beach. Closing her eyes, Samantha imagined herself there again, before the hurricane, before the loss, before the sorrow. The ocean sounds continued; Samantha lingered in the past, in the happy days of childhood.

It wasn’t perfect – and she could never truly recapture her childhood joy or the innocence of life before loss – but she was content.

Here, in her garden, where fairy gardens enticed the fae, and honeysuckle lured bees, Samantha could be content and write about plants again and accept her life as it was. And it could be a good one. As long as she closed her eyes sometimes and smelled the lilacs and listened to the ocean-wave leaves.

Need more great reads? We’ve got plenty at the MockingOwl Roost. Enjoy!

• Seder – Heart-warming fiction
• By the Light of the Moon Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, & Part 4 – Heart-warming romance
• Moment of Discovery – Flash fiction
• The Book – Heart-warming fiction
• Before They’re Gone – Will & May Story – Biographical fiction
• Epiphany (in Peaches) – Flash fiction
• For Sale – Heart-warming fiction
• Anatomy of a Memory Part 1 & Part 2 – Emotive fiction

Rita Mock-Pike

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Editor-in-Chief of The MockingOwl Roost, Rita Mock-Pike is the granddaughter of aviatrix, Jerrie Mock, first woman to pilot an airplane solo around the world. Rita has found inspiration from her grandmother’s life and flight and pursued many of her own dreams in theatre, podcasting, novel writing, and cooking up delicious food from around the world. She now writes on food, travel, pets, faith, and the arts. She’s happily married to Matt, and faithfully serves the very fluffy kitten queen, Lady Stardust.

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