I am from and of the desert.
I prefer my skies wide and blue, my earth rough, dry. If love is the water of this emotional life, I, like the desert, have learned to survive on little. I make do with what I have.
There is beauty in this barren place. There is uncertainty, too. Fear. Like the cacti that fleck this brown landscape, I am blossom and spine.
I wish I could be other. I wish I could be open, like bright-faced daisies flourishing in expansive crowds, casting cheer across wild hillsides. I want to be like great sheets of blue lupine waving in meadow breeze, drinking deeply from great wells with trusting taproots.
But I was born to drought and I know the scent of brushfire. I can be only what I am. Barbed. Succulent. Alive. Blooming, fiercely, against this parched earth. Breathing the peace of this quiet place. Pulling what moisture can be found from cool morning air.
May there always be strength enough for this. To, as the saying goes, bloom where we are planted.
This amigurumi cactus was made freehand with Sugar ‘n Cream cotton yarn and a 5.0mm/H hook. ❤