The Smallest Things

No big resolutions here.

[ Muscari Azureum in my garden, 31 December 2024, photography by me ]

Of course the instinct is to have an end-of-year humblebrag. That was my first thought. After all, I’ve ticked some huge things off my bucket list (Versailles! Chatsworth!) this year.

But on my dog walk this morning I thought: I am ending this year deeply happy and deeply grateful. And the things I’m most excited about for 2025 (as well, of course, as my planned ‘Grand Tour’ of European gardens ending at my best friend’s wedding in Tuscany) are the tiniest things growing in my garden.

[ Narcissus ‘Julia Jane’ in my garden, 31 December 2024, photograph by me ]

Don’t get me wrong, 2024 has been a year full of loss. A year full of my own grief and of supporting others through theirs. A devastating year. A year that has shattered my heart over and over again. A year that has brought those I love to their knees. Not to mention a year of global slaughter, of declining democracy, of nature’s vengeance, of injustices on a vast (and a tiny) scale.

Well, now I’ve written myself in to a corner because there’s no ‘but’ after that.

[ Tiny pots in my garden, 31 December 2024, photograph by me ]

What there is… Yes, that’s it - what remains is my garden. There are tiny, vivid-blue bubbles of a flower appearing out of the green stalks of a Muscari. The tiny, swelling throats of Narcissus ‘Julia Jane’. The smallest nudge of a tulip bulb appearing at the top of a pot. There are tiny sprigs of leaves appearing out of Ranunculus corms I planted in cells just a few days ago.

And in each tiny shoot is a cell of hope. The promise of beauty and of life to come.

[ Tulips growing in my garden, 31 December 2024, photograph by me ]

In a way it is simply too difficult to reflect on this year. And after all, nothing will happen tomorrow. The clock will tick into a New Year, just another Wednesday, and the grief will remain. The losses are not lost in the melee of exploding champagne corks and dog-shocking fireworks.

But somehow, going out into the garden and looking at two tiny pots, each no bigger than a generous ramekin - one of Muscari Azureum and one of Narcissus ‘Julia Jane’ - brings me joy. Big joy. The kind that fills the heart. A joy so outsized to the cause that it is a sort of madness.

[ Sprouting Ranunculus corms in my garden, 31 December 2024, photograph by me ]

So, I suppose, I want to say that I wish you joy in 2025. This kind. The kind that relies on nothing more than the natural passage of time, and the planting of a thumb-nail-sized bulb in a ramekin-sized pot. The kind that remains, even when grief takes so much. Here’s to tomorrow, just another Wednesday, and the almost imperceptibly tiny growth it will bring.