Tender Shoots: Anticipation and Hope

By Alice Gaddi-Roselo

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh

There is a gentle kind of waiting that comes after we have done what we can, when the small things we have lived, learned, and tended begin to come together.

After the seeds have been sown, after the soil has been turned, after the long days of tending and trusting — there comes a season when we simply wait. Not passively, but with attentiveness. A readiness, a soft hope that something, however small, will begin to show.

This is the season of tender shoots.

In gardening, a tender shoot is fragile, easily missed. It does not yet resemble the fullness of what it will become. There are no flowers, no fruits, no grand signs of success. And yet, within that small emergence lies everything: the promise that something has taken root.

In our lives, I have come to see that hope often looks like this — not in big answers or clear outcomes, but in subtle shifts and beginnings, in the quiet anticipation that what we have lived and reflected upon is shaping something new within us.

Perhaps this is what we begin to notice in a GAB class — when a student, after weeks of writing, suddenly shares a line that reveals a new understanding of self. It may be muted, almost tentative, but it is real — a tender shoot of insight, just beginning to emerge.

I remember a time when I found myself waiting for the first student to enroll in my small tutorial and review center — not for something dramatic, but for a sense of clarity that there were good prospects ahead. It was one of those in-between seasons where nothing seemed to be changing on the outside. The days moved along in familiar ways, and yet inwardly, there was a question that lingered: “What now?”

I had done the work I knew how to do. I had shown up, given what I could, held on to faith as best as I could. And still, there was no clear sign of what was next. I distributed flyers, sent emails, offered trial sessions, and asked for referrals.

It would have been easy to feel discouraged or to think that perhaps nothing was happening at all.

But slowly, something began to shift.

It came not as an answer, but as a feeling: a softening, a renewed willingness to begin in small ways. I noticed that I was becoming more open — to conversations, to ideas, to moments I might have overlooked before. I found myself saying “yes” more gently, more freely.

In much the same way, a new GAB instructor preparing for her first class may feel this anticipation: reviewing modules, wondering if she is ready, holding both excitement and uncertainty. And then, in a small moment — perhaps sending out her first invitation or welcoming her first participant — something begins. Not yet a full class, but a beginning.

Nothing had dramatically changed, and yet everything felt just a little different.

Looking back, I realize now that this was my tender shoot.

It was not the full bloom I had hoped for. It did not resolve all my questions. But it was a small, steady, and real sign that something in me was growing.

And with that realization came hope.

Not certainty, but steady confidence. Hope that growth was happening, even when unseen. Hope that the season of waiting was not empty, but necessary — that what had been planted was quietly taking shape.

Perhaps this is one of the subtle truths I have encountered as a Guided Autobiography student and instructor.

When we take time to write, to remember, to reflect, we are not only looking back. We are, in a way, tending to our own inner soil — making space for meaning to emerge.

And sometimes, what emerges first is not a clear answer, but a tender shoot — a new understanding, a softened perspective, a growing readiness to move forward.

We see this when a student begins to write with more honesty, or when a memory once painful is now told with gentleness. We see it when an instructor learns to trust the silence in the group, allowing stories to unfold in their own time. These are tender shoots — small, but deeply alive.

For many of us, especially in our senior season of life, we may wonder what still lies ahead. We may ask if there are still new beginnings waiting, still new paths to walk, still new growth to experience.

The presence of tender shoots gently reminds us: yes.

Yes, there is still more — not in a hurried way, but in a deeper, more meaningful unfolding. A growth rooted in who we have become, carrying both memory and possibility.

Anticipation, then, does not have to be anxious. It can be gentle, grounded — a steady openness to what is still forming within us.

And hope does not have to be loud. It can be as simple as noticing that something in us has not stopped growing.

And perhaps, in every story we write and every story we listen to, we are witnessing these tender shoots — signs that something within us continues to unfold.

So, in this season, we are invited not to rush toward the bloom, but to honor the tender shoots:
to notice the small signs of life,
to trust the unseen process,
to believe that what is emerging carries meaning.

We may not yet know what it will become.

But it is enough, for now, to know that it has begun.

And that, in itself, is hope.

“What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.”
— Meister Eckhart