The first of the iris blossoms are on the retreat. I still see tight buds waiting to open, but not as many as a week ago. In the blink of an eye, the festival of purple in our front yard will be gone for another year.

Will I be a little wistful? Heck, yeah. Give me my melancholic minute, won't you?

This marks our third iris-blooming season since we moved into our new house. The first year, the flowers awoke while we were still unpacking boxes, and the show was a spectacular welcome. I felt unearned pride by their presence. We are not gardeners, just people who try to stay reasonably on top of the weeds and buy a few pots of flowers in summer. But look, neighbors. OUR IRISES!

Yet we didn't earn them. They were a gift, planted years before by the couple who built and owned this home for its whole life before we came along. They're both gone now; their kids put the house on the market. But I think of the Stanfords from time to time, and imagine who they were and what their lives were like when our home was still theirs. I silently thank them for the nice wood floors and the bay window.

And in spring, when the iris buds become a festival of dancers in swirling dresses, I thank them again, with emphasis.

Not long ago I was at dinner with good friends, talking about work, love, the pandemic, and understanding what is and isn't important as we occupy what writer Arthur C. Brooks (generously) calls "the second half of life."

Almost in passing, one of my friends observed, "This is all we have, right?" She drew a circle around the table with an index finger. "Just moments, like this."

Moments like this, meaning: beautiful and fleeting. Not to be wasted. And of course, my friend is right. We are all old enough to have learned that the most gorgeous moments and feelings and experiences that light up a world — the ones we most want to save for later — are just like all the other moments, in that they refuse to last forever.

Hello.
I love you.
Thank you.
So long.

When I grow up, I want to be a lady who spends as little time as possible on feeling wistful about the passing of the iris blossoms. I want to revel in their budding and unfurling, and their ecstatic dances in the sunlight. Then, when they're gone, to be happy for having witnessed their outrageous beauty.