The Ocotillo

There is a plant out here that looks dead most of the year.

It is called the ocotillo. Long skinny stems, ten or twenty of them, sticking straight up out of the ground. Brown. Gray. No leaves. Not pretty at all. The kind of plant you walk right past unnoticed.

I walked past it for months.

I was a mess. I will say it. My Dad had passed. I had a new diagnosis I did not ask for. A job had ended. I was up at 5 in the morning because I could not sleep and out the door by 6:30 with my hiking sneakers on and a head full of noise. I was walking fast. Crazy fast. The kind of fast you walk when you are trying to outrun your own life.

The ocotillo just stood there. Looking dead.

Then the rains came.

And one morning, I came around the bend and stopped right where I was standing. Because that same plant. The dead one. The one I had walked past a hundred times. It was covered in tiny green leaves and at the very tips of every stem, clusters of red flowers. Flame red. So red I was enamoured by it.

It had not been dying.

Down in the dark, in the soil, where nobody could see, the whole plant had been doing the real work. Roots reaching. Water stored. Life held quietly in reserve. A whole hidden world, busy.

I was standing right next to it the whole time, and I did not see a thing.

I think about that plant.

A lot.

In a few days, I’m officially releasing my book into the world. It is called Grief Walk - Finding Grace.

Here is the truth. I did not sit down to write it. I was walking. The walks came first. Then the words. The book came out of the desert. Out of saguaros and coyotes and one dead snake on the road and the ocotillo and a song the cactuses sing when the wind hits their thorns just right.

I was the ocotillo for a long time.

A little scorched. Looking dead to anyone who did not know me. Doing quiet, hidden work, I could not even see myself.

And I want to say this to you. Just you. The one reading this right now.

If you feel dead, you are not.

If you feel scorched, you are not.

If you feel like nothing is happening, something is. Underground. Within. You cannot see it yet.

Here is what this book is, and just as importantly, what it is not.

It is not your typical grief book. There are no five stages. No timeline. No therapist voice. Nothing to check off.

It is a walk. It’s you and me. I tell you a story from the trail. Then I invite you to do something. Step outside. Slow down. Put your hand on your heart. Pick up a pen. Notice the crack in the sidewalk where something green is coming through.

Nothing fancy.

Just you, walking. And whatever the walking gives you.

Saturday is launch day. The cover, the full reveal, all of it. But here’s a quiet secret. The book is already out there, waiting for the readers who can’t wait. If that’s you, you can find it here.

For everyone else, see you Saturday.

For today, I just wanted to say hi. And tell you about that plant.

The nourishing rain is coming for you, too.

Lynne Marie She Who Sings With Saguaros