The Irises have come out all over D.C. They are such an extravagant flower, like butterflies, their petals seeming to defy gravity as they unfurl, folding into each other in irregular carresses, shaped and re-shaped with every bump and breeze. When we first bought our house in 2000, the first time I had a yard of my own, I thought I might plant a vegetable garden. But I casually threw some sunflower seeds into the dirt, and the moment I saw my first blooming sunflower, I was hooked. I went through a few years of flower gardening frenzy, including some when I bought too many bulbs and planted them haphazardly everywhere there was free dirt. Then I had kids and more kids, and very little time to garden. But some of the bulbs still come up. This iris bloomed in a hazardous spot, right off our main path down the garden where strollers and bikes are daily wheeled up and down and children run with bats and sticks and backpacks hanging from their hands–and right by the rarely latched door that connects our yard to our neighbor’s, and that is opened and closed by kids’ hands and dogs’ noses with a multitude of reasons to hurry and few to be careful as they come and go. But so far, the iris stands, lovely in the sun and heedless of our chaos.