Since I was going through photos this week, I decided to look for some others that I know brought happiness to my eyes. I have a couple of pictures of me, four to be exact, where I am carefree and happy. One, my favorite of them, is me wrestling with Mom over a roll of toilet paper. It’s fuzzy, slightly out of focus, but every time I look at it, I can remember her laugh and the snickers I felt beaming out of me.
She had a love of the outdoors. Of gardening.
The first picture is of a clematis I grew at my old house. It was stunning and grew over five feet high. The second is the giant purple iris I planted for her at our current home. After she passed, even though I don’t really like the color yellow, I brought that mug to work because it was her favorite. I kept that photo as my graphic for a very long time, so that every time I saw it, I would think of her and her love of being outside in the sunshine, sitting on her chaise lounge in her big floppy hat and reading a book.
Flowers became painful for me a long time ago. But before they did, I used to work in a flower shop. I gardened or had plants every place I’ve ever lived. I did, however, have to give them up at one point. Mostly, and I have to laugh about this, because my cat Tomtom didn’t know they weren’t a litter box. My poor spider plants didn’t know what hit them. LOL!
This week while grocery shopping, I saw these beautiful mini-carns, peaking out and decided, for the first time in years, to bring them back into my home. They sit, simply arranged, in three vases on my tv stand, between my candles and Mom’s favorite Buda statue. (Which I keep for both Mom and Tomtom. We used to call him Buda-belly.)
While this may seem soft and gentle, it isn’t. This is me bringing the crazy and happy back in, overriding what flowers became as a control device.
Memories of grass whistles, climbing up trees, jumping over or scaling large rocks to identify herbs and flora in the treelines, hiking naked through thick pine trails, waking up in the sunshine on a hillside, walking barefoot through creekbeds, chopping firewood for what seemed like hours, tossing chestnut hulls into flames and watching them light up like a city skyline, getting stuck in blackberry bushes, running outside to play tag in a thunderstorm, going outside the cabin in the middle of a snowstorm so I could take a shower as there was no plumbing indoors. I remember bonfires, and partying in the blueberry fields in A-P-W, and bouncing at house parties of friends. I remember the field and bird ID books Mom always brought on road trips and singing oh so off key with my mother and sister. We’d just get up on a Saturday and pick a direction and go, telling outrageous jokes and exploring the world around us, being in it, with no purpose other than to enjoy.
I see these sturdy, delicate flowers and know they are dichotomous. That as they bloom, the heads will flourish and fill with color. The petals are so soft, the stems strong, and they are one of the longest lasting cut flowers.
I think, this weekend, I will pack a picnic lunch and go to my favorite local beach, sit on the benches, and watch snow fly over the ice. I haven’t done that in so long…